Monk Quotes - Page 6

• If you become a monk because it's an easy life, because you're going to be fed, and sheltered and people will respect you, then that is not a very meritorious motivation.

  Tenzin Palmo

  Motivation, People, Easy

  4 Copy quote

• I think it's a meritorious action to become a monk, provided that your motivation is pure.

  Tenzin Palmo

  Motivation, Thinking, Action

  4 Copy quote

• This question, Is loving your enemy a life practice?, I like that question. It is a life practice, certainly, for everyone. It relates to
  the idea of, Is this a householder practice or is it a monk practice? I think it's both. Everyone has that practice.

  Robert Thurman

  Thinking, Practice, Ideas

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Many people would say that A Tibetan monk, even in Lhasa, may be free while the ruler of China may not be free.

  Pico Iyer

  People, May, China

  Interview with Felicia M. Tomasko, layoga.com. April 26, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Dalai Lama is transforming those criteria - and the whole way of conducting politics. He's conducting politics in a much deeper way than most politicians are able to. He's the only politician I know of who's a monk. The Pope, of course, is in a similar position, but the Pope isn't in the same way leading a country of many million people.

  Pico Iyer

  Country, People, Able

  "Interview: Pico Iyer". Interview with Felicia M. Tomasko, LA Yoga Magazine: May 2008: Volume 7/No. 5, layoga.com. April 26, 2008.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Thelonious] Monk is a subject in itself. I mean, most piano players in most big bands sit down and they play with the band, you know. But Monk would just sit there like this. And all of a sudden there'd be a pause from all the trumpets and everything and Monk would go 'plink!' like that. And everybody would go 'Yeah!

  Ray Brown

  Mean, Player, Piano

  4 Copy quote

• Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his life of thought and prayer.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prayer, Illumination, Inward

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.749, Library of America

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do not perceive even one other thing, O monks, that when undeveloped and uncultivated entails such great suffering as the mind. The mind when undeveloped and uncultivated entails great suffering.

  Gautama Buddha

  Mind, Suffering, Perceive

  10 Copy quote

• The Buddha also counseled the monks and nuns to avoid wasting any precious time by engaging in idle conversation, oversleeping, pursuing fame and recognition, chasing after desires, spending time with people of poor character, and being satisfied with only a shallow understanding of the teaching.

  Nhat Hanh

  Teaching, Character, People

  "Old Path White Clouds". Book by Thich Nhat Hanh, 1987.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Men, Inspire, Mixtures

  12 Copy quote

• Korea's first Zen Master-poet wrote simple yet elegant poetry of the world he inhabited, both physically and spiritually, and of daily insights-a pause along the way for a deep clear breath, a moon-viewing moment, a seasonal note or a farewell poem to a departing monk. His poems speak softly and clearly, like hearing a temple bell that was struck a thousand years ago.

  Sam Hamill

  Farewell, Moon, Simple

  4 Copy quote

• I like Thelonious Monk, he's so gnarled, he's like a piece of machinery that's pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.

  Tom Waits

  Art, Gone, Pieces

  4 Copy quote

• Kung fu was made so the monks could train their bodies and move their bodies with strength, so they could be physical enough to gain mental enlightenment. Before that, they kept falling asleep when [masters] were trying to teach them.

  RZA

  Moving, Fall, Enlightenment

  Source: www.complex.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nowadays, by contrast, Christianity specialises in soft-focus mood music; its threats of hell, its demand for poverty and chastity, its doctrine that only the few will be saved and the many damned, have been shed, replaced by strummed guitars and saccharine smiles. It has reinvented itself so often, and with such breathtaking hypocrisy, in the interests of retaining its hold on the gullible, that a medieval monk who woke today, like Woody Allen's Sleeper, would not be able to recognise the faith that bears the same name as his own.

  A.C. Grayling

  Guitar, Names, Hypocrisy

  "Can an atheist be a fundamentalist?" by A. C. Grayling, www.theguardian.com. May 3, 2006.

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• The retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate connection with the catholic party tempted him, whenever the diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert, to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to the discretion of his friends and adherents.

  Edward Gibbon

  Retirement, Party, History

  Edward Gibbon (1998). “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.437, Wordsworth Editions

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
  'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me;
  Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
  She's still the same belov'd, contented thing.

  Alexander Pope

  Kings, Light, Degrees

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Dyce (1866). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. ...”, p.108

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Im a Tibetan monk, not a vegetarian.

  Dalai Lama

  Vegetarian, Tibetan

  19 Copy quote

• In the four hundred and thirteenth year of the Christian era, some three hundred miles above Alexandria, the young monk Philammon was sitting on the edge of a low range of inland cliffs, crested with drifting sand.

  Charles Kingsley

  Christian, Book, Years

  Charles Kingsley (1856). “Hypatia ... The second edition”, p.1

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The dress does not make the monk.
  [Fr., L'habit ne fait le moine.]

  Francois Rabelais

  Dresses, Doe, Appearance

  7 Copy quote

• Contrary to popular stereotypes, seeking simplicity doesn't require that you become a monk, a subsistence forager, or a wild-eyed revolutionary. Nor does it mean that you must unconditionally avoid the role of consumer. Rather, simplicity merely requires a bit of personal sacrifice: an adjustment of your habits and routines within consumer society itself.

  Rolf Potts

  Mean, Sacrifice, Simplicity

  4 Copy quote

• A Buddhist monk has a responsibility first and foremost to themselves, and that's to find the truth each day in every part of their life.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhist, Responsibility, Buddhism

  4 Copy quote

• As a monk you have a responsibility to meditate many hours a day. Not just to sit there but to think of the ten thousand radiances.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhist, Responsibility, Buddhism

  4 Copy quote

• People need things. I don't live a monk's existence, I'm a consumer, but I try to do it to the level that doesn't feel like there's an overabundance of something.

  Jamie Lee Curtis

  People, Trying, Needs

  "Jamie Lee Curtis Comes Clean". Interview with Andrew Eccles, www.goodhousekeeping.com. September 3, 2010.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Buddhism is in your heart. Even if you don't have any temple or any monks, you can still be a Buddhist in your heart and life.

  Nhat Hanh

  Buddhist, Heart, Buddhism

  "Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh". Interview with Bell Hooks, www.lionsroar.com. March 24, 2017.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Prayer by its nature is communion and union of man with God; by its action it is the reconciliation of man with God, the mother and daughter of tears, a bridge for crossing temptations, a wall of protection from afflictions, a crushing of conflicts, boundless activity, the spring of virtues, the source of spiritual gifts, invisible progress, food of the soul, the enlightening of the mind, an axe for despair, a demonstration of hope, release from sorrow, the wealth of monks.

  Ignatius Bryanchaninov

  Crush, Daughter, Mother

  13 Copy quote