Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.

— Dalai Lama XIV

Hard times build determination and inner strength. Through them, we can also come to appreciate the uselessness of anger. Instead of getting angry nurture a deep caring and respect for troublemakers because by creating such trying circumstances they provide us with invaluable opportunities to practice tolerance and patience.

— Dalai Lama XIV

He told me that while he was in a Chinese Communist gulag for almost eighteen years, he faced danger occasionally. I thought he was referencing a threat to his own life. But when I asked, "What danger?" he answered, "Losing compassion toward the Chinese.

— Dalai Lama XIV

I always tell my Western friends that it is best to keep your own tradition. Changing religion is not easy and sometimes causes confusion. You must value your tradition and honor your own religion.

— Dalai Lama XIV

I always try to share with others the idea that in order to become compassionate it is not necessary to become religious.

— Dalai Lama XIV

I asked the Dalai Lama what it was like to wake up with joy, and he shared his experience each morning. 'I think if you are an intensely religious believer, as soon as you wake up, you thank God for another day. And you try to do God’s will. For a nontheist like myself, but who is a Buddhist, as soon as I wake up, I remember Buddha’s teaching: the importance of kindness and compassion, wishing something good for others, or at least to reduce their suffering. Then I remember that everything is interrelated, the teaching of interdependence. So then I set my intention for the day: that this day should be meaningful. Meaningful means, if possible, serve and help others. If not possible, then at least not to harm others. That’s a meaningful day.

— Dalai Lama XIV

I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I’m not talking about the short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I’m not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks.

— Dalai Lama XIV

... I discovered a small kitten in the garden, which apparently had been abandoned by its mother. I picked it up and noticed that its hind legs were crippled in just the same way as Tiering's were when she died. Furthermore, I took this creature into my house and looked after it until eventually it was able to walk. Like Tiering, she was also female, but very beautiful and even more gentle. She also got along very well with the two dogs, particularly Sang ye, against whose furry chest she liked to lie.

— Dalai Lama XIV

If a person shows anger to you, and you show anger in return, the result is disaster. If you nurse hatred, you will never be happy, even in the lap of luxury. By contrast, if you control your anger and show its opposite - love, compassion, tolerance, and patience - then not only do you remain in peace, but gradually the anger of others also will diminish.

— Dalai Lama XIV

If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.

— Dalai Lama XIV