We always hear about the importance of happiness, but very rarely about how to achieve it. That’s why we bring you these 45 phrases from Matthieu Ricard, the happiest man in the world.
Why is he the happiest man in the world?
By clicking here you will know its history. But to tell the story briefly, Matthieu Ricard’s brain emits a level of gamma waves and brain activities never before recorded. Making him more “capable” of being happy and less vulnerable to the negative.
Now he is a monk who explains the benefits of meditation and imparts a great deal of knowledge. In these 45 sentences by Matthieu Ricard, you will understand a little more about how he has achieved the title of the happiest man in the world.
Also read: This is how they teach to live happier at Yale University.
45 Matthieu Ricard Quotes: The happiest man in the world.
- “We try so hard to fix the outside, but our control of the outside world is limited, temporary, and often illusory.”
- “Meditation is not sitting under a tree. It is completely changing your brain, and therefore, changing who you are.
- “There is a possibility of change because all emotions are fleeting.”
- “Happiness is a state of internal fulfillment, not the satisfaction of the inexhaustible desires of external things.”
- “The fundamental reason to meditate is to transform ourselves in order to better transform the world.”
- “I have come to understand that while some people are naturally happier than others, their happiness is still vulnerable and incomplete, and that achieving lasting happiness as a way of being is a skill. It requires a sustained effort to train the mind and develop a set of human qualities, such as inner peace; mindfulness; and altruistic love.
- “I think what everyone should be doing, before it’s too late, is committing to what they really want to do with their lives.”
- “Few of us regret the years it takes to educate ourselves or master a crucial skill. So why complain about the perseverance needed to become a balanced and truly compassionate human being?
Quotes by Matthieu Ricard #9
- “As long as a sense of self-importance controls your being, you will never know lasting peace.”
- “The Tibetan poet Shabkar said: ‘A compassionate person is kind even when angry; one without compassion will kill even while he smiles.
- “We are a lot like birds that have lived too long in a cage that we return to, even when we get the chance to fly. We have become so used to our failures that we hardly imagine what life would be like without them. The prospect of change makes us dizzy.”
- “Voluntary simplicity is both joyful and altruistic. Cheerful because it is not permanently plagued by the hunger for “more”; altruistic because it does not encourage the disproportionate concentration of resources in the hands of a few; resources that, if distributed equitably, would significantly improve the lives of people deprived of basic needs”.
- “Another form of laziness is thinking: ‘That’s not for me’; it is beyond my abilities’; ‘I prefer not to get involved with it.’ In other words, you leave the race before reaching the starting line.
- “Some people may think that the smartest way to ensure their own well-being is to isolate themselves from others and work hard on their own happiness; regardless of what other people are experiencing. They probably assume that if everyone did that, we would all be happy. But the result would be exactly the opposite: instead of being happy, they would be torn between hope and fear, making their lives miserable and also ruining the lives of the people around them.”
- “We deal with our mind from morning to night; and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy.
- “Being altruistic not only helps us benefit others. It is also the most satisfying way to live.”
Matthieu Ricard Quotes #17
- “If you think that everything is perfect in your life, you are either a Buddha, or you are a complete idiot.”
- “Detachment is the calm strength of those who are determined not to be carried away by thoughts or monopolized by all kinds of activities and trivial ambitions, which devour their time and ultimately only provide minor and ephemeral satisfaction.”
- “Those who seek happiness in pleasure, wealth, glory and power; they are as naive as the child who tries to catch a rainbow and use it as a coat.
- “The most amazing quality that humans and animals have in common is the ability to experience suffering.”
- “Demanding immediate results is one aspect of instability of mind or laziness.”
- “The world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
- “The truth is that even if the resentment is provoked by an external object; It is not found anywhere else but in our mind.
- “In its deepest sense, suffering is intimately linked to a misunderstanding of the nature of reality.”
Matthieu Ricard Quotes #25
- “Don’t think about the past! Don’t anticipate the future either! No reflections on the present! Leave the mind as it is. In this instant. Aware. relaxed. Beyond this, there is absolutely nothing!”
- “Unable to find happiness in ourselves, we desperately search for it in objects, in experiences, in increasingly strange ways of thinking or behaving. In short: we move away from happiness looking for it where it does not exist.
- “For the lover, a beautiful woman is an object of desire; for the hermit, a distraction; and for the wolf, a good bite”.
- “Too often we look like an exhausted hiker carrying a heavy sack over his shoulder filled with a mixture of supplies and stones. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to leave it on the ground for a moment to separate one thing from another and lighten the load?
- “Little by little, by training your mind, you can change your usual way of being.”
- “Altruism is like rings in the water when a stone is thrown. At first the circles are very small, then they get bigger and finally they cover the entire surface of the ocean.”
- “Nature has evolved to be the inventor of complexity. Just as a jazz musician embroiders around a theme; improvising new melodic phrases according to his inspiration and the audience’s reactions; Nature spontaneously plays with the physical laws that were fixed at the beginning of the universe.
Matthieu Ricard Quotes #32
- “The passing ‘now’ produces time. The ‘now’ that remains produces eternity”.
- “A storm may be raging on the surface, but the depths remain calm. The wise man always remains connected to the depths. On the other hand, he who only knows the surface and does not know the depths is lost when the waves of suffering hit him.
- “By happiness I mean a deep sense of blossoming that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasant sensation, a fleeting emotion or a state of mind; but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, because although it can be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we see it.
- “The distinction between past, present, and future is just a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
- “True happiness comes from an essential goodness that wholeheartedly desires that each person find meaning in their existence. It is a love always available, without ostentation or calculation. The immutable simplicity of a good heart”.
- “Meditation helps us become familiar with a clear and precise way of seeing things and cultivate healthy qualities that lie dormant within us unless we make an effort to attract them.”
- “The change, even a small one, in the way we handle our thoughts and perceive and interpret the world; it can significantly change our existence.”
Quotes by Matthieu Ricard #39
- “Happiness is about learning how to put things in perspective and reduce the gap between appearances and reality.”
- “To achieve happiness we must acquire a better knowledge of how the mind works and have a more precise vision of the nature of things.”
- “While ordinary pleasures are produced by contact with agreeable objects and end when that contact is broken. Lasting well-being is felt as long as we remain in harmony with our inner nature.
- “Imagining happiness as the achievement of all our desires and passions is to confuse the legitimate aspiration to inner fulfillment; with a utopia that inevitably leads to frustration”.
- “When difficulties seem insurmountable, optimists react in a more constructive and creative way. They accept the facts realistically. They know how to quickly identify the positive in adversity. They extract lessons and propose an alternative solution or resort to a new project. Pessimists prefer to walk away from the problem or adopt escapist strategies (sleep, isolation, drug or alcohol abuse) that lessen their focus on the problem. Instead of confronting them resolutely, they prefer to brood over their misfortunes, nurture illusions, dream up “magical” solutions, and accuse the entire world of being against them. They find it difficult to draw lessons from the past, which often leads to the repetition of their problems.
Matthieu Ricard Quotes #44
- “The simple person lives the way he breathes, without more effort or glory, without more affection and without shame. Simplicity is freedom and transparency”.
- “In all human activities there are sources of inspiration whose perfection, far from discouraging us, arouses our enthusiasm by offering an admirable vision of what we aspire to.”
If you want to know more millionaire success phrases, click here!
We hope that these phrases by Matthieu Richard are very useful to you and that you can extract knowledge to apply to your life.
If you want to know more about him, you can get his books or watch this video, where he talks about letting altruism be a guide in your life.
And remember, if you are really interested in creating your own business, you can read our book “How to create a company while working: Discover how to manage your time, manage your money and motivate yourself while creating a company and working for another” , where you will find all the information you need to found your own company, without having to leave your job.
