Matthieu Ricard Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

We must distinguish between spirituality in general terms, which aims to make us better people, and religion. Adopting a religion remains optional, but becoming a better human being is essential.

Matthieu Ricard
No change occurs if we just let our habitual tendencies and automatic patterns of thought perpetuate and even reinforce themselves, thought after thought, day after day, year after year. But those tendencies and patterns can be challenged.

Matthieu Ricard
We all have the ability to study the causes of suffering and gradually to free ourselves from them....it is not the magnitude of the task that matters, it's the magnitude of our courage.

Matthieu Ricard
Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things.

Matthieu Ricard
The ultimate reason for meditating is to transform ourselves in order to be better able to transform the world.

Matthieu Ricard
By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.

Matthieu Ricard
When hearing a door creak, the optimist thinks it's opening and the pessimist thinks it's closing.

Matthieu Ricard
Genuine fearlessness arises with the confidence that we will be able to gather the inner resources to deal with any situation that comes our way.

Matthieu Ricard
Authentic happiness is not linked to an activity; it is a state of being, a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how the mind functions.

Matthieu Ricard
Transform our way of perceiving things, we transform the quality of our lives.

Matthieu Ricard
Good and evil exist only in terms of the happiness or suffering they create in ourselves and others

Matthieu Ricard
To love oneself is to love life. It is essential to understand that we make ourselves happy in making others happy.

Matthieu Ricard
The goal of meditation is precisely to make your mind smooth and manageable so that it can be concentrated or relaxed at will; and especially to free it from the tyranny of mental afflictions and confusion

Matthieu Ricard
We find that the optimists have an undeniable advantage over the pessimists. Many studies show that they do better on exams, in their chosen profession, and in their relationships, live longer and in better health, enjoy a better chance of surviving postoperative shock, and are less prone to depression and suicide.

Matthieu Ricard
For a few moments, be aware of your potential for change. Whatever your present situation is, evolution and transformation are always possible. At the least, you can change your way of seeing things and then, gradually, your way of being as well.

Matthieu Ricard
Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure as he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them.

Matthieu Ricard