Quotes by Vietnamese Authors

In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by, and disappears.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Compassion is a verb.
Thich Nhat Hanh
There is nowhere to arrive except the present moment.
Thich Nhat Hanh
When you feel overwhelmed, you’re trying too hard. That kind of energy does not help the other person and it does not help you. You should not be too eager to help right away. There are two things: to be and to do. Don’t think too much about to do—to be is first. To be peace. To be joy. To be happiness. And then to do joy, to do happiness—on the basis of being. So first you have to focus on the practice of being. Being fresh. Being peaceful. Being attentive. Being generous. Being compassionate. This is the basic practice. It’s like if the other person is sitting at the foot of a tree. The tree does not do anything, but the tree is fresh and alive. When you are like that tree, sending out waves of freshness, you help to calm down the suffering in the other person.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Our inner space and our peace of mind are affected by our outer space.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Alcohol, I had learned, was an eloquent if somewhat inaccurate interpreter. I had placed my trust that December night in glass after glass of it, eager not for drink but for a bit of talk.
Monique Truong
Dear friends, do you know that you are lucky people? You don't have any cows to lose.
Thich Nhat Hanh
When we're inspired by the desire to practice and transform our suffering, the mind of the moment is very beautiful. Sometimes we call it the mind of love. It's because of love that we practice.
Thich Nhat Hanh
You tried to play the game, okay? But they run the game. You don't run anything. That means you can't change anything. Not from the inside. When you got nothing, you got to change things from the outside.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Bhikkhus, the teaching is merely a vehicle to describe the truth. Don’t mistake it for the truth itself. A finger pointing at the moon is notthe moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never knowthe real moon.The teaching is like a raft that carries you to the other shore. The raft is needed, but the raft is not the other shore. An intelligent personwould not carry the raft around on his head after making it across to the other shore. Bhikkhus, my teaching is the raft which can help youcross to the other shore beyond birth and death. Use the raft to cross to the other shore, but don’t hang onto it as your property. Do notbecome caught in the teaching. You must be able to let it go.
Thich Nhat Hanh
You leave behind your fine poems.You leave behind your beautiful flowers. And the earth that was only leant to you. You ascend into the Light, O Quechomitl, you leave behind the flowers and the singing and the earth. Safe journey, O friend.
Aliette de Bodard
In the Buddhist tradition, we speak of the oneness of the body and mind. Whate very happens to the body also happens to the mind....This is a very important encounter (engaging in sex) , not to be done in a casual manner.
Thich Nhat Hanh
...love comes from the head and not the heart. Of the entire body, only the head matters.
Kim Thúy
Only this actual moment is life.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thơ ca là thứ vô cùng phù phiếm nhưng vô cùng thiêng liêng. Tôi tin ngay. Cũng như tôi tin ở trền đời có những thứ vô cùng thiêng liêng nhưng vô cùng phù phiếm.
Nguyễn Nhật Ánh
This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not,” the Buddha taught. All the conditions have come together in such a way that we are where we are, and we are what we are. To hold on to feelings of regret is to lose the present moment.
Dang Nghiem
When you lose a loved one, you suffer. But if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no birth, no death. There is manifestation and there is the cessation of manifestation in order to have another manifestation. You have to be very keen and very alert in order to recognize the new manifestations of just one person.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Nourish yourself every day with the wonderful things that life has to offer you. Nourish yourself in the present moment. Walk in the kingdom of God.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Mindfulness is like that—it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Your true home is in the here and the now.
Thich Nhat Hanh
If a mark of affection can sometimes be taken for an insult, perhaps the gesture of love is not universal: it too must be translated from one language to another, must be learned.
Kim Thúy
The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.
Thich Nhat Hanh
The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Direct experience is the only way.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Treat your anger with the utmost respect and tenderness, for it is no other than yourself.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Follow me if I advance kill me if I retreat revenge me if I die!
Ngo Dinh Diem
I still couldn’t banish the image of the Quetzal Flower. In my mind, it merged with that of Priestess Eleuia: everything a man could desire or aspire to, a woman who would suck the marrow from your bones and still leave you smiling.
Aliette de Bodard
People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
Thich Nhat Hanh
In the West, for example, people believe they must 'pursue happiness' as if it were some kind of a flighty bird that is always out of reach. In the East, we believe we are born with happiness and one of life's important takes, my mother told me, is to protect it.
Le Ly Hayslip
Remember, you're not half of anything, you're twice of everything.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
lmost everything looked more beautiful from a distance, the earth becoming more perfect as one ascended and came closer to seeing the world from God's eyes, man's hovels and palaces disappearing, the peaks and valleys of geography fading to become strokes of a paintbrush on a divine sphere.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Emptiness is not the opposite of existence. It is not nothingness or annihilation.
Thich Nhat Hanh
I know this sounds very Neanderthal but I want a man that would just take me, ravage me, and do what he pleases with me. I frankly don’t care what he does or how he does it. I just want it to be fucktastic. I want some bodies slamming, head banging, and wild animalistic beastie craze sex. You Jane, me Tarzan kind of sex.
Dee Dinh
drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it as the axis on which the world revolves
Thich Nhat Hanh
When you understand, you cannot help but love. You cannot get angry.
Thich Nhat Hanh
If I had known what it meant to love, I wouldn't have had children, because once we love, we love forever, like Uncle Two's wife, Step-aunt Two, who can't stop loving her gambler son, the son who is burning up the family fortune like a pyromaniac.
Kim Thúy
Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.
Thich Nhat Hanh
It is said that God has created man in his own image. But it may be that humankind has created God in the image of humankind.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Strategy is 5 percent thinking, 95 percent execution. And strategy execution is 5 percent technical, 95 percent people-related.
Professor Quy Huy INSEAD
We can only accept teachings that we have put into practice with our own awakened understanding and that we can see with our own experience to be true.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Compassion is born from understanding suffering. We all should learn to embrace our own suffering, to listen to it deeply, and to have a deep look into its nature.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Equanimity means to let go, not to abandon.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Suffering has its beneficial aspects. It can be an excellent teacher.
Thich Nhat Hanh
As Hegel said, tragedy was not the conflict between right and wrong but right and right, a dilemma none of us who wanted to participate in history could escape. The major had the right to live, and I was right to kill him. Wasn't I?
Viet Thanh Nguyen
When you touch someone who authentically represents a tradition, you not only touch his or her tradition, you also touch your own.
Thich Nhat Hanh
The American soldiers were brave, but courage is not enough. David did not kill Goliath just because he was brave. He looked up at Goliath and realized that if he fought Goliath’s way with a sword, Goliath would kill him. But if he picked up a rock and put it in his sling, he could hit Goliath in the head and knock Goliath down and kill him. David used his mind when he fought Goliath. So did we Vietnamese when we had to fight the Americans.
Vo Nguyen Giap
So if we love someone, we should train in being able to listen. By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Peace is based on respect for life, the spirit of reverence for life.
Thich Nhat Hanh
We know very well that we have ancestors. But our ancestors are not only human. We have animal ancestors; we have plant ancestors; and we have mineral ancestors. Our human ancestors are still very young. Human beings appeared very late in the history of life on Earth. Our animal ancestors are still there within us. The reptile, the fish, and the ape are still in our blood. Not only were they part of us in the past, but they continue to exist within us. Just look deeply into your cells. We see that we are the whole history of life.
Thich Nhat Hanh
At first the weight of loss was thrust upon me so harshly I could only take a short breath, just enough to endure the next few seconds, only to find I must inhale again. Every person in turmoil thinks the boulder on her chest will never lift. Yet the same boulder awakens an equally strong urge to live.
Thanhha Lai
I am a continuation like the rain is the continuation of the cloud.
Thich Nhat Hanh