Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

Most people don't know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking. They pay more attention to that than to what the other person is saying, and none at all to what really matters: the Being of the other person underneath the words and the mind. Of course, you cannot feel someone else's Being except through your own. This is the beginning of the realization of oneness, which is love. At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is.

I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river.

Compassionate action emerges from the sense of openness, connectedness, and discernment you have created.

People travel to marvel at the mountains, seas, rivers and stars and they pass right by themselves without astonishment.

The least flower, with brimming cup, may stand and share its dew drop with another near.

There is no differentiation between all living things: trees, river, animals, and humans.

Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.

Some day, the world will discover that, without thought, there can be no love.

Begin to see yourself in all other beings.

My understanding of kindness is that we are hoping to be truly beneficial in every situation, and that this desire means a whole suite of things: being nicer, sure, but also being more aware, more present, more articulate, more fearless, less habituated, etc., etc. And sometimes even being firm, or having an edge, or even being angry.

All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

Yoga is about compassion and generosity towards others. It means being mindful of the world around us.

I learned to hear silence. That's the kind of life I lived: simple. I learned to see things in people around me, in my mom, dad, brothers and sisters.

Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

I want to feel my life while I'm in it.

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.

You can see and you can listen, but you have to have moments in which you feel.

High Alpine meadows, like their near relatives prairie, desert and certain varieties of wetland, teach us to consider the world from a fresh perspective, to open our eyes and take account of what we have missed, reminding us that, in spite of our emphasis on the visual in everyday speech, we see so very little of the world.

I love to think that animals and humans and plants and fishes and trees and stars and the moon are all connected.

Forget yourself. Become one with eternity. Become part of your environment.

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.

Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.

Because a human being is endowed with empathy, he violates the natural order if he does not reach out to those who need care. Responding to this empathy, one is in harmony with the order of things, with dharma; otherwise, one is not.