Dalai Lama Quotes About Violence

• If every 8 year old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation

  Dalai Lama

  Clever, Inspiration, Mother And Son

• World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion.

  Dalai Lama

  Life, Spiritual, Peace

• Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Buddhist, Compassion

  "Dzogchen: Heart Essence of the Great Perfection" by Dalai Lama, Snow Lion Publications, 2004.

• The real destroyer of inner peace is fear and distrust. Fear develops frustration, frustration develops anger, anger develops violence.

  Dalai Lama

  Trust, Wisdom, Peace

• Nowadays, we are confronted by a huge gap between rich and poor. This is not only morally wrong, but practically a mistake. It leads to the rich living in anxiety and the poor living in frustration, which has the potential to lead to more violence. We have to work to reduce this gap. It's truly unfair that some people should have so much while others go hungry.

  Dalai Lama

  Mistake, Frustration, Should Have

• Like anyone else, I too have the potential for violence; I too have anger in me. However, I try to recall that anger is a destructive emotion. I remind myself that scientists now say that anger is bad for our health; it eats into our immune system. So, anger destroys our peace of mind and our physical health. We shouldn’t welcome it or think of it as natural or as a friend.

  Dalai Lama

  Thinking, Mind, Trying

• Try to remain truthful. The power of truth never declines. Force and violence may be effective in the short term, but in the long run it's truth that prevails.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Running, Wisdom

• We can make this a more peaceful century if we cherish non-violence and concern for others’ well-being. It is possible. If the individual is happier, his or her family is happier; if families are happy, neighborhoods and nations will be happy. By transforming ourselves we can change our human way of life and make this a century of compassion.

  Dalai Lama

  Compassion, Concern For Others, Peaceful

• Because the twentieth century was a century of violence, let us make the twenty-first a century of dialogue.

  Dalai Lama

  Twenties, Violence, Firsts

• I consider non-violence to be compassion in action. It doesn’t mean weakness, cowering in fear, or simply doing nothing. It is to act without violence, motivated by compassion, recognising the rights of others.

  Dalai Lama

  Mean, Compassion, Rights

• We cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear. So if we wish to die well, we must learn how to live well: Hoping for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life.

  Dalai Lama

  Death, Attachment, Wish To Die

• Many people today agree that we need to reduce violence in our society. If we are truly serious about this, we must deal with the roots of violence, particularly those that exist within each of us. We need to embrace 'inner disarmament,' reducing our own emotions of suspicion, hatred and hostility toward our brothers and sisters

  Dalai Lama

  Brother, Roots, People

• Although violence and the use of force may appear powerful and decisive, their benefits are short-lived. Violence can never bring a lasting and long term resolution to any problem, because it is unpredictable and for every problem it seems to solve, others are created. On the other hand, truth remains constant and will ultimately prevail.

  Dalai Lama

  Powerful, Hands, Long

• All forms of violence, especially war, are totally unacceptable as means to settle disputes between and among nations, groups and persons.

  Dalai Lama

  Peace, War, Mean

• Nonviolence is the only way. Even if you achieve your goal by violent means there are always side effects, and these can be worse than the problem. Violence is against human nature.

  Dalai Lama

  Mean, Goal, Way

• If one's cause is supported by sound reasoning, there is no point in using violence. It is those who have no motive other than selfish desire and who cannot achieve their goal through logical reasoning who rely on force.

  Dalai Lama

  Selfish, Logical Reasoning, Goal

  Dalai Lama, Anne Benson, Fabien Ouaki (2016). “Imagine All the People: A Conversation with the Dalai Lama on Money, Politics, and Life As It Could Be”, p.127, Simon and Schuster

• I'm sure all of us agree that we need to overcome violence, but we first need to examine whether it has any value. From a strictly practical perspective, on certain occasions violence appears to be useful. We can solve a problem quickly by force. But this success is often at the expense of the rights and welfare of others. Although one problem has been solved, the seed of another has been planted.

  Dalai Lama

  Rights, Perspective, Violence

• Non-violence means dialogue, using our language, the human language. Dialogue means compromise; respecting each other’s rights; in the spirit of reconciliation there is a real solution to conflict and disagreement. There is no hundred percent winner, no hundred percent loser—not that way but half-and-half. That is the practical way, the only way.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Real, Mean

• Although we are all the same in not wanting problems and wanting a peaceful life, we tend to create a lot of problems for ourselves. Encountering those problems, anger develops and overwhelms our mind, which leads to violence. A good way to counter this and to work for a more peaceful world is to develop concern for others. Then our anger, jealousy and other destructive emotions will naturally weaken and diminish.

  Dalai Lama

  Life, Jealousy, Wisdom

• Peace isn't the mere absence of violence; peace must come from inner peace. And inner peace comes from taking others’ interests into account.

  Dalai Lama

  Inner Peace, Violence, Absence

• If we are demoralized, sad and only complain, we’ll not solve our problems. If we only pray for a solution, we’ll not solve our problems. We need to face them, to deal with them without violence, but with confidence - and never give up. If you adopt a non-violent approach, but are also hesitant within, you’ll not succeed. You have to have confidence and keep up your efforts - in other words, never give up.

  Dalai Lama

  Giving Up, Effort, Faces

• I believe that the basic nature of human beings is gentle and compassionate. It is therefore in our own interest to encourage that nature, to make it live within us, to leave room for it to develop. If on the contrary we use violence, it is as if we voluntarily obstruct the positive side of human nature and prevent its evolution.

  Dalai Lama

  Believe, Healing, Rooms

• The antidote to hatred in the heart, the source of violence, is tolerance. Tolerance is an important virtue of bodhisattvas [enlightened heroes and heroines] - it enables you to refrain from reacting angrily to the harm inflicted on you by others. You could call this practice "inner disarmament," in that a well-developed tolerance makes you free from the compulsion to counterattack. For the same reason, we also call tolerance the "best armor," since it protects you from being conquered by hatred itself.

  Dalai Lama

  Hero, Heart, Practice

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Violence will only increase the cycle of violence.

  Dalai Lama

  Justice, Violence, Increase

• Compassion and love constitute non-violence in action. They are the source of all spiritual qualities: forgiveness, tolerance, all the virtues. They give meaning to our activities and makes them constructive. There is nothing amazing about being rich or highly educated; only when the individual has a warm heart do these attributes become worthwhile.

  Dalai Lama

  Love, Forgiveness, Spiritual

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