Thich Nhat Hanh, a revered Zen Buddhist monk, poet, and peace activist, has touched the lives of millions around the world with his teachings on mindfulness, compassion, and peace.
Born in Vietnam in 1926, his lifelong efforts to promote peace and reconciliation during and after the Vietnam War earned him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr.
We’ve curated a selection of Thich Nhat Hanh’s most iconic quotes that encapsulate his teachings.
Whether you are familiar with his work or encountering his teachings for the first time, Thich Nhat Hanh’s words offer timeless guidance on the path to inner peace and harmony with the world around us.
The Best Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes
Famous Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes
“There is no path to happiness, happiness is the path.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“The best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“When a person’s speech is full of anger, it is because he or she suffers deeply.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Anyone who is practicing understanding and compassion can exemplify true power. Anyone can be a Buddha.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.”
— 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
On Gratitude
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“When we recognise the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection, love is born.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“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?”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“I promise myself that I will enjoy every minute of the day that is given me to live.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
→ Read more quotes about gratitude
On Peace
“Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair, there is no hope.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Peace is present right here and in ourselves and in everything we do and see… Every breath we take, every step we take, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Many people think excitement is happiness. But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“You have to realize that happiness is not something you find at the end of the road. You have to understand that it is here, now.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“I love to sit and eat quietly and enjoy each bite, aware of the presence of my community, aware of all the hard and loving work that has gone into my food.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“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.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
→ Read more quotes about inner peace
→ Read more quotes about world peace
On Life
“Life is available only in the present moment.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Life is filled with suffering, but is also filled with many wonders.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Most of us experience a life full of wonderful moments and difficult moments. But for many of us, even when we are most joyful, there is fear behind our joy.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Now I see that if one doesn’t know how to die, one can hardly know how to live, because death is a part of life.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Mindfulness 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
“Life is illuminated by right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life. Don’t be attached to the future. Don’t worry about things you have to do. Don’t think about getting up or taking off to do anything. Don’t think about departing.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
On Love
“Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“In true love, there is no pride.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Let us fill our hearts with our own compassion towards ourselves and towards all living beings.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“We can continue to learn generation after generation and now it’s time to begin to learn how to love in a non-discriminatory way because we are intelligent enough, but we are not loving enough as a species.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“To love is to recognize; to be loved is to be recognized by the other.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
On Healing
“When we give ourselves the chance to let go of all our tension, the body’s natural capacity to heal itself can begin to work.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“The source of suffering is a false belief in permanence and the existence of separate selves.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it up to our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you, your perceptions need you, your feelings need you. The wounded child in you needs you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
→ Read more quotes about healing
Short Quotes
“Because you are alive, everything is possible.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Happiness is the cessation of suffering.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“My actions are my only true belongings.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Our own life has to be our message.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Smile, breathe and go slowly.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
→ Read more short quotes
More Quotes
“Happiness is a function of compassion. If you do not have compassion in your heart, you do not have any happiness.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice. No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Meditation is not to avoid society, it is to look deep to have the kind of insight you need to take action. To think it is just to sit down and enjoy the calm and peace, is wrong.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Usually, people have a tendency to be caught in the worries concerning the future or in the regret concerning the past. There is some kind of energy that is pushing them to run, and they are not able to establish themselves in the present moment.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“We are looking for happiness and running after it in such a way that creates anger, fear and discrimination. So when you attend a retreat, you have a chance to look at the deep roots of this pollution of the collective energy that is unwholesome.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“By eating meat we share the responsibility of climate change, the destruction of our forests, and the poisoning of our air and water. The simple act of becoming a vegetarian will make a difference in the health of our planet.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
