Daisaku Ikeda
Increase your joy by doing the good you wish to have done to you.Collection: Joy
The power of growth, of improvement, the power to overcome all stagnation and break through every obstacle and transform a barren wasteland into a verdant field - that unstoppable power of hope resides right within your own heart. It wells up from the rich earth of your innermost being when you face the future without doubt or fear: "I can do more. I can grow. I can become a bigger and better human being."Collection: Heart
Being sincere, dedicated and honest is the key. People of integrity triumph in the end.Collection: Integrity
What we need most is to restore and revive our humanity. We must create a society where people can live with dignity, a society where people can live in peace and happiness. People are tired of games played for power and profit. People are tired of hatred and conflict. They want to live with more wisdom and confidence, and in peace. It may seem like a long and distant path, but I am convinced that the 21st century must see a movement to sow the seeds of peace, happiness and trust in every person's heart. The seeds of a truly humane way of life. I am convinced this is the only path.Collection: Tired
I cannot say this too strongly: Do not compare yourselves to others. Be true to who you are, and continue to learn with all your might.Collection: Might
It is senseless to blame others or your environment for your miseries. Change begins from the moment you muster the courage to act. When you change, the environment will change. The power to change the world is found nowhere but within our own life.Collection: Life
What is defeat in life? It is not merely making a mistake; defeat means giving up on yourself in the midst of difficulty. What is true success in life? True success means winning in your battle with yourself. Those who persist in the pursuit of their dreams, no matter what the hurdles, are winners in life, for they have won over their weaknesses.Collection: Dream
Whatever the outcome may be, the important thing is to step forward on the path that you believe is right.Collection: Believe
What matters is the value we’ve created in our lives, the people we’ve made happy and how much we’ve grown as people.Collection: What Matters
Ultimately, the only way to make good friends is to become a good friend yourself. Good people gather around other good people.Collection: Friends
Our voice resonates with life. Because this is so, it can touch the lives of others. The caring and compassion imbued in your voice finds passage to the listener's soul, striking his or her heart and causing it to sing out; the human voice summons something profound from deep within, and can even compel a person into action.Collection: Heart
Culture is an elevated expression of the inner voice which the different peoples of the Earth have heard in the depths of their being, a voice which conveys the vibrant compassion and wisdom of the cosmic life. For different cultures to engage in interaction is to catalyze each other's souls and foster mutual understanding.Collection: Karma
True love should be transformative; a process that amplifies our capacity to cherish not just one person but all people. It can make us stronger, lift us higher and deepen us as individuals. Only to the extent that we polish ourselves now can we hope to develop wonderful bonds of the heart in the future.Collection: Heart
I can do more. I can grow. I can become a bigger and better human being.Collection: Bigger And Better
Everything begins with the resolve to take the first step. From that action, wisdom arises and change begins. Without action, nothing changes.Collection: Life
You must not for one instant give up the effort to build new lives for yourselves. Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life. This is not an easy struggle. Indeed, it may be the most difficult task in the world, for opening the door to your own life is, in the end, more difficult than opening the doors to the mysteries of the universe.Collection: Life
A person who respects others is respected by others in return. Those who treat others with compassion and concern are protected and supported by others. Our environment is essentially a reflection of ourselvesCollection: Reflection
People can only live fully by helping others to live. When you give life to friends you truly live. Cultures can only realize their further richness by honoring other traditions. And only by respecting natural life can humanity continue to exist.Collection: Helping Others
Life is filled with potential that is truly unfathomable. At last we are coming to see the enormous power it possesses. That is why we must never write anyone off. In particular, we mustn’t put boundaries on our own potential. In most cases, our so-called limitations are nothing more than our own decision to limit ourselves.Collection: Writing
The misfortune of others is our misfortune. Our happiness is the happiness of others. To see ourselves in others and feel an inner oneness and sense of unity with them represents a fundamental revolution in the way we view and live our lives. Therefore, discriminating against another person is the same as discriminating against oneself. When we hurt another, we are hurting ourselves. And when we respect others, we respect and elevate our own lives as well.Collection: Hurt
Many things happen in life. There are joyous days and times of suffering. Sometimes unpleasant things occur. But that's what makes life so interesting. The dramas we encounter are part and parcel of being human. If we experienced no change or drama in our lives, if nothing unexpected ever happened, we would merely be like automatons, our lives unbearably monotonous and dull. Therefore, please develop a strong self so that you can enact the drama of your life with confidence and poise in the face of whatever vicissitudes you may encounter.Collection: Strong
An attitude of compassion does not mean looking down on someone, pitying them in their misery. Compassion is based on respect. We discuss life as equals, learn from each other and strive together to improve our lives.Collection: Attitude
Like the ocean that remains calm in its depths even when waves rage over its surface, and like the sun that continues shining on high even during storms, we can at each moment create value and develop our state of life, enjoying our existence to the fullest in times of both suffering and joy.Collection: Life
If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal its beauty to us.Collection: Love
The human spirit is as expansive as the cosmos. This is why it is so tragic to belittle yourself or to question your worth. No matter what happens, continue to push back the boundaries of your inner life. The confidence to prevail over any problem, the strength to overcome adversity and unbounded hope — all reside within you.Collection: Adversity
Come on obstacles! I've been expecting you! This is the chance that I've been waiting for!Collection: Waiting
The darker the night, the nearer the dawn. Victory in life is decided by that last concentrated burst of energy filled with the resolve to win.Collection: Winning
Reality is harsh. It can be cruel and ugly. Yet no matter how much we grieve over our environment and circumstances nothing will change. What is important is not to be defeated, to forge ahead bravely. If we do this, a path will open before us.Collection: Buddhist
Envying another's beauty will diminish your own. But when you praise beauty in others your own beauty deepens.Collection: Attitude
Why is it that sometimes our prayers seem not to be answered? This is a manifestation of the Buddha's wisdom, so that we can deepen our prayers, become stronger people, live more profound lives and secure deeper, more lasting good fortune. If our slightest prayer was answered immediately, we would become lazy and degenerate. And we could not hope to build a life of great dignity and substance.Collection: Prayer
No matter what kind of difficult situation one may find oneself in, some opening, some opportunity to fight one's way out, can always be found. What's most important is to hold fast to Hope, to face the future with courage.Collection: Fighting
True happiness means forging a strong spirit that is undefeated, no matter how trying our circumstances.Collection: Strong
The experience of losing a loved one impels us toward a deeper understanding of life. Everyone fears and is saddened by death. That is natural. But by struggling to overcome the pain and sadness that accompanies death, we become sharply aware of the dignity and preciousness of life and develop the compassion to share the sufferings of others as our own.Collection: Pain
Often the biggest obstacle in meeting life’s challenges is actually our own fear of failure.Collection: Challenges
What our world most requires now is the kind of education that foster love for humankind, that develops character-that provides an intellectual basis for realization of peace and empowers learners to contribute to and improve society.Collection: Character
Dialogue starts from the courageous willingness to know and be known by others. It is the painstaking and persistent effort to remove all obstacles that obscure our common humanity.Collection: Common Humanity
To possess both wisdom and compassion is the heart of our human revolution. If you have wisdom alone and lack compassion, it will be a cold, perverse wisdom. If you have compassion alone and lack wisdom, you cannot give happiness to others. You are even likely to lead them in the wrong direction, and you won't be able to achieve your own happiness.Collection: Heart
If you lose today, win tomorrow. In this never-ending spirit of challenge is found the heart of a victor.Collection: Heart
As long as we are human, we are destined to make mistakes. We all fall prey to flawed beliefs and views. What separates a forward-looking person from an intransigent one, a virtuous person from a malevolent one, however, is whether one can candidly admit to ones mistakes and take bold steps to redress them.Collection: Mistake
Life can unfold unlimitedly as long as we have a heart of appreciation and an undefeated mind.Collection: Appreciation
Courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin. Compassion without courage is not genuine. You may have a compassionate thought or impulse, but if you don’t do or say anything, it’s not real compassion.Collection: Real
Keep moving forward, even one or two steps, in your own way. Those who live out their lives to the fullest, unperturbed by the noisy clamor around them, are the true winners.Collection: Moving
Before comparing yourself with others, win the battle with yourself. Strive to be better today than yesterday, and better tomorrow than today.Collection: Attitude
No matter how complex global problems may seem, it is we ourselves who have given rise to them. They cannot be beyond our power to resolveCollection: Future
World peace is not something that can be realized simply by politicians signing treaties, or by business leaders creating economic cooperation. True and lasting peace will be realized only by forging bonds of trust between people at the deepest level, in the depths of their very lives.Collection: Creating
A person fully awakened to the jewel-like dignity of their own life is capable of truly respecting that same treasure in others.Collection: Jewels
There’s no need for us to be held back by the past or how things have been so far. The important thing is what seeds we are sowing now for the future.Collection: Past
Creating harmony amidst diversity is a fundamental issue of the twenty-first century. While celebrating the unique characteristics of different peoples and cultures, we have to create solidarity on the level of our common humanity, our common life. Without such solidarity, there will be no future for the human race. Diversity should not beget conflict in the world, but richness.Collection: Unique