## Spiritual Leaders and Their Quotes (Chronological Order) - [**Lao Tzu** (fl. 6th-4th century BCE)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Laozi): Traditional author of the Tao Te Ching - "The highest good is like water. Water benefits the ten thousand things and does not compete. It dwells in places the people disdain, and so comes near to the Tao." *(Tao Te Ching, chapter 8; wording varies by translation, and authorship of the text is traditional)* - [**The Buddha** (c. 563-483 BCE)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Buddha-founder-of-Buddhism): Founder of Buddhism - "Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal." *(Dhammapada, verse 5)* - [**Hillel the Elder** (c. 110 BCE-10 CE)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hillel): Jewish sage of the Mishnah - "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" *(Pirkei Avot 1:14)* - [**Jesus of Nazareth** (c. 4 BCE-c. 30 CE)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jesus): Central figure of Christianity - "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." *(Gospel of Matthew 25:40, NIV)* - [**The Prophet Muhammad** (c. 570-632)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Muhammad): Founder of Islam - "Be merciful to those on the earth, and the One in the heavens will have mercy upon you." *(The Hadith of Mercy, Jami at-Tirmidhi 1924, graded sahih)* - [**Rumi** (1207-1273)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rumi): Persian Sufi poet - "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." *(Coleman Barks's very free translation in The Essential Rumi, 1995; the Persian original reads closer to “beyond unbelief and Islam there is a desert plain”)* - [**Henry David Thoreau** (1817-1862)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-David-Thoreau): Transcendentalist author of Walden - "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." *(Walden, 1854, “Conclusion”)* - [**Mohandas K. Gandhi** (1869-1948)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi): Leader of India's nonviolent independence movement - "My life is my message." *(The documented 1945 original is “My life is its own message,” written for journalist Deton J. Brooks; traced by Quote Investigator)* - [**Howard Thurman** (1899-1981)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Howard-Thurman): Theologian and mentor to the civil rights movement - "There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island and on that island there is an altar and standing guard before that altar is the 'angel with the flaming sword.' Nothing can get by that angel to be placed upon that altar unless it has the mark of your inner authority." *(Meditations of the Heart, 1953)* - [**Abraham Joshua Heschel** (1907-1972)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abraham-Joshua-Heschel): Rabbi, philosopher, and civil rights marcher - "Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge." *(Man Is Not Alone, 1951)* - [**Thich Nhat Hanh** (1926-2022)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thich-Nhat-Hanh): Zen teacher who coined “interbeing” - "If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper... 'To be' is to inter-be." *(The Heart of Understanding, 1988)* - [**Martin Luther King Jr.** (1929-1968)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr): Baptist minister and leader of the American civil rights movement - "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." *(“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963)* - [**Desmond Tutu** (1931-2021)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Desmond-Tutu): Anglican archbishop and voice of ubuntu - "My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together." *(From his ubuntu teaching; compiled in The Words of Desmond Tutu, 1989)* - [**The 14th Dalai Lama** (1935-present)](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dalai-Lama-14th): Spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism - "My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness." *(Repeated across his recorded talks and books, e.g. Kindness, Clarity, and Insight, 1984; no single first occurrence located, though the attribution is undisputed)* ## Related - [[Programmers Quotes]] - [[Musicians Quotes]] - [[Dogs Quotes]] - [[How To Get Started]]