I felt we must separate political responsibility. The Dalai Lama should not carry that burden. So that is my selfish reason - to protect the old Dalai Lama tradition. It is safer without political involvement.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

Everyone here has the sense that right now is one of those moments when we are influencing the future.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. 

There is far more opportunity than there is ability.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.

You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced - the just demands of peace and security will be met - or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

I came across few whites as a boy at Qunu. The local magistrate, of course, was white, as was the nearest shopkeeper. Occasionally, white travelers or policemen passed through our area. These whites appeared as grand as gods to me, and I was aware that they were to be treated with a mixture of fear and respect.

Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention. Most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn't matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.

Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.