Gautama Buddha

c. 5th century BCE · founder of Buddhism · northern India

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, was a wandering teacher of northern India whose discourses were transmitted orally for centuries before being written down in the Pali Canon. His much-cited Kalama Sutta (Anguttara Nikaya 3.65) does counsel the Kalamas not to accept a teaching merely on the strength of report, tradition, scripture, logic, or a revered speaker — but it does not tell them to trust ‘reason and common sense’ instead; it points to direct experience tested alongside the counsel of the wise.

Traced to source

1 quote we’ve traced

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense”

Disputed

Not actually Gautama Buddha

Often misattributed to Gautama Buddha

Famous lines widely pinned on Gautama Buddha that we’ve traced to someone else.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned”

actually Buddhaghosa

“I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act”

actually G. K. Chesterton

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these”

actually Lloyd Shearer

“There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way”

actually A. J. Muste, adapted by Wayne Dyer & Thich Nhat Hanh

“To understand everything is to forgive everything”

actually An anonymous French proverb (‘Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner’)

“Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny”

actually Frank Outlaw

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world”

actually Thomas Byrom

“When men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever the diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the red circle”

actually Jean-Pierre Melville

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection”

actually Sharon Salzberg

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