Gautama Buddha
Quotes & Wisdom
Gautama Buddha founded one of humanity's most influential spiritual traditions by teaching a path beyond suffering that requires neither gods nor priests - only the disciplined examination of one's own mind. Born a prince in ancient India, he abandoned wealth and family to seek enlightenment, achieving it under a bodhi tree after years of ascetic practice. His teachings on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path spread across Asia and now the world, adapted by cultures from Tibet to Thailand to California. Whether understood as religion, philosophy, or psychology, Buddhism offers what the Buddha promised: a practical method for reducing suffering and finding peace.
Context & Background
Siddhartha Gautama was born around 563 BCE in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, to the Shakya clan - hence his later title "Shakyamuni," sage of the Shakyas. His father Suddhodana was a chieftain or perhaps king of a small territory; his mother Maya died shortly after his birth. The historical details remain uncertain, filtered through centuries of legend and devotion.
Ancient India in the sixth century BCE was a civilization in religious ferment. The Vedic tradition of Brahmin priests, elaborate sacrifices, and rigid caste distinctions was being challenged by wandering ascetics who sought liberation through meditation, self-denial, and philosophical inquiry. The Upanishads had recently explored the identity of individual soul (atman) with universal reality (Brahman). Teachers offered competing paths to moksha - release from the cycle of rebirth.
According to tradition, Siddhartha was raised in luxury, sheltered from all knowledge of suffering. His father, warned by prophecy that his son might become either a great king or a great spiritual teacher, chose to keep him ignorant of the world's pain. But on excursions outside the palace, Siddhartha encountered an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and finally a wandering ascetic - the "four sights" that shattered his innocence.
At twenty-nine, he abandoned his wife Yasodhara, his infant son Rahula, and his princely life to seek the answer to suffering. This "Great Renunciation" launched six years of seeking that would culminate in his enlightenment.
Siddhartha studied with renowned teachers, mastering their meditation techniques and philosophical systems. He practiced extreme asceticism with five companions, fasting until his ribs showed through skin, seeking liberation through the mortification of flesh. Neither approach brought the insight he sought.
The breakthrough came when he rejected both indulgence and extreme self-denial for a "middle way." Seated beneath a pipal tree in Bodh Gaya, he resolved not to rise until he had achieved enlightenment. Through a night of profound meditation, he confronted and defeated Mara, the tempter, and as dawn broke, he attained bodhi - awakening. He was thirty-five years old.
What did he understand in that moment? The Buddhist scriptures describe the Four Noble Truths: that life involves suffering (dukkha), that suffering arises from craving and attachment, that suffering can cease, and that the path to its cessation is the Eightfold Path - right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
This analysis is notably psychological rather than metaphysical. The Buddha did not claim divine revelation or cosmic knowledge. He claimed to have discovered the mechanism of human suffering and the method of its cure. His authority rested not on tradition or scripture but on experience that anyone could verify.
For the remaining forty-five years of his life, the Buddha walked the Ganges plain, teaching whoever would listen - kings and outcasts, merchants and monks, men and women. His first sermon at the Deer Park in Sarnath set the "wheel of dharma" in motion. His five former companions became his first disciples; the sangha, the community of followers, began to grow.
The Buddha adapted his teaching to his audience - a pedagogical skill later termed "skillful means." To philosophers he offered subtle analysis; to simple folk, moral guidance and stories. He refused to speculate about metaphysical questions - the origin of the universe, the existence of the soul after death - dismissing them as distractions from the practical work of liberation.
The sangha developed rules for monastic life, preserved in the Vinaya texts. Monks and nuns renounced property, family, and caste distinctions to follow the path full-time. Laypeople supported them with food and shelter while practicing simplified versions of the discipline. This institutional structure enabled Buddhism to survive and spread.
The Buddha's death - or parinirvana, final liberation - came around 483 BCE at Kushinagar. His last words, according to tradition, urged his followers to work out their own salvation with diligence. No successor was appointed; the dharma itself, the teaching, would be the guide.
Within centuries of the Buddha's death, his teachings had divided into numerous schools. The Theravada ("Teaching of the Elders"), preserved primarily in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, emphasizes individual liberation through monasticism. The Mahayana ("Great Vehicle"), dominant in East Asia, emphasizes compassion and the ideal of the bodhisattva who delays personal liberation to help all beings. Vajrayana, centered in Tibet, adds tantric practices and ritual elaborations.
Each tradition developed its own scriptures, institutions, and cultural expressions. Buddhism absorbed local deities and customs wherever it spread. Chinese Buddhism incorporated Confucian and Taoist elements; Japanese Buddhism developed Zen's minimalism and Pure Land's devotional practices; Tibetan Buddhism created elaborate visualization practices and the institution of reincarnating lamas.
The twentieth century brought Buddhism to the West, where it has been reinterpreted yet again. Mindfulness meditation, stripped of religious context, has entered hospitals and corporations. Secular Buddhists practice the psychological techniques while bracketing traditional cosmology. Whether these adaptations preserve or distort the Buddha's teaching remains debated.
The Buddha left no writings; all scriptures record what he is said to have taught, compiled after his death. The earliest texts, in Pali, were transmitted orally for centuries before being written down. Separating historical fact from legendary accretion is nearly impossible - and perhaps beside the point for a tradition that emphasizes practice over belief.
His teaching on non-self (anatta) remains one of Buddhism's most challenging doctrines. The Buddha denied the existence of a permanent, unchanging soul - a direct challenge to Hindu atman. What we call the self is a constantly changing stream of physical and mental processes, held together by craving and delusion. Liberation comes through seeing this truth directly.
The Buddha's social teaching was radical for his time. He rejected the caste system, accepting disciples from all backgrounds. He established an order of nuns despite resistance, though he reportedly predicted this would shorten the dharma's lifespan. His ethics focused on intention and consequences rather than ritual purity.
Images of the Buddha - serene, meditating, often smiling slightly - rank among humanity's most reproduced artworks. Yet the Buddha himself warned against attachment to his person. "Be a lamp unto yourself," he advised. The pointing finger is not the moon; the teacher is not the teaching. His authority was always instrumental - a raft to be abandoned upon reaching the other shore.
Gautama Buddha Quotes
However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
Doubt everything. Find your own light.
Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it
Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.
If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another.
A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.
Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth.
Greater in battle
An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.
If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly our whole life would change.
Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.
Words do not express thoughts very well; every thing immediately becomes a little different, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom of one man seems nonsense to another.
Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.
These... things, householder, are welcome, agreeable, pleasant, & hard to obtain in the world:
The greatest prayer is patience.
The one who has conquered himself is a far greater hero than he who has defeated a thousand times a thousand men.
May all that have life be delivered from suffering
If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.
When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky
She who knows life flows, feels no wear or tear, needs no mending or repair.
Wear your ego like a loose fitting garment.
To become vegetarian is to step towards the stream which leads to nirvana.
What you think, you become.
What you are is what you have been. What you'll be is what you do now.
friendship is the only cure for hatred, the only guarantee of peace.
Speak the truth do not become angered and give when asked, even be it a little. By these three conditions one goes to the presence of the gods.
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
When you come upon a path
If a traveller does not meet with one who is his better, or his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey; there is no companionship with a fool.
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
life is a river always flowing. do not hold onto things. work hard.
There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.
Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.
True love is born from understanding.
Purity or impurity depends on oneself,
Nothing is forever except change.
As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.
The tongue like a sharp knife... Kills without drawing blood.
As rain falls equally on the just and the unjust, do not burden your heart with judgements but rain your kindness equally on all.
Attachment leads to suffering.
Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.
Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy.
A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.
Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.
If we fail to look after others when they need help, who will look after us?
In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.
A man asked Gautama Buddha, "I want happiness."
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.
Even as a solid rock is unshaken by the wind, so are the wise unshaken by praise or blame.
Those who have failed to work toward the truth have missed the purpose of living.
Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all
Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to others.
There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
Meditate.
There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with an evil thought, suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the beast that draws the wagon.... If a man speak or act with a good thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path.
Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.
It is like a lighted torch whose flame can be distributed to ever so many other torches which people may bring along; and therewith they will cook food and dispel darkness, while the original torch itself remains burning ever the same. It is even so with the bliss of the Way.
Do not look for a sanctuary in anyone except your self.
If you find no one to support you on the spiritual path, walk alone. There is no companionship with the immature.
A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.
Kindness should become the natural way of life,not the exception.
In separateness lies the world's greatest misery; in compassion lies the world's true strength.
He is able who thinks he is able.
Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.
The past is already gone, the future is not yet here. There's only one moment for you to live, and that is the present moment
With our thoughts we make the world.
The Way is not in the sky; the Way is in the heart.
Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it.
You are the community now. Be a lamp for yourselves. Be your own refuge. Seek for no other. All things must pass. Strive on diligently. Don’t give up.
What is evil? Killing is evil, lying is evil, slandering is evil, abuse is evil, gossip is evil, envy is evil, hatred is evil, to cling to false doctrine is evil; all these things are evil. And what is the root of evil? Desire is the root of evil, illusion is the root of evil.
“When the Aggregates arise, decay and die, O bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay, and die.”
“Three things can not hide for long: the Moon, the Sun and the Truth.”