Nhat Hanh

Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.

In order to rally people, governments need enemies… if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.