The situation of the world is still like this. People completely identify with one side, one ideology.… Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then to go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side. Doing only that will be a great help for peace.

—Thích Nhất Hạnh

understanding empathy peace identity ideology reconciliation

More quotations from Thích Nhất Hạnh

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

—Thích Nhất Hạnh

Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos—the trees, the clouds, everything.

—Thích Nhất Hạnh

Do not take sides; if you take sides, you are trying to eliminate half of reality, which is impossible. For many years the United States has been trying to describe the Soviet Union as the evil side.… If we look at America very deeply, we see the Soviet Union. And if we look deeply at the Soviet Union, we see America. If we look deeply at the rose, we see the garbage; if we look deeply at the garbage, we see the rose. In this international situation, each side is pretending to be the rose and calling the other side garbage.

—Thích Nhất Hạnh

If you have a gun, you can go out and shoot one, two, three, five people. But if you have an ideology and stick to it, thinking it is the absolute truth, you can kill millions.

—Thích Nhất Hạnh

When I was four years old, my mother used to bring me a cookie every time she came home from the market. I always went to the front yard and took my time eating it, sometimes half an hour or forty-five minutes for one cookie. I would take a small bite and look up at the sky. Then I would touch the dog with my feet and take another small bite.… I was entirely in the present moment, with my cookie, the dog, the bamboo thickets, the cat, and everything.… It is possible to eat our meals as slowly and joyfully as I ate the cookie of my childhood.

—Thích Nhất Hạnh

More quotations tagged with “identity”

I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm a giraffe.

—Richard Gere

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Kids don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.

—Jim Henson in It's Not Easy Being Green

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Fame warps your identity, metastasizes your anxieties, and hollows you out like a jack-o'-lantern. It's sparkly pixie dust that burns whatever it touches like acid.

—Elan Mastai in All Our Wrong Todays

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Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars.

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Nothing had changed. I was the stupid one again. I was the girl who never understood who she was to people.

—Carol Rifka Brunt in Tell the Wolves I'm Home

identity change stupidity

History

23 Feb 2013 Added
23 Feb 2013 Edited (details weren’t recorded yet)
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

The situation of the world is still like this. People completely identify with one side, one ideology. ... Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then to go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side. Doing only that will be a great help for peace.