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Who really said it

My true religion is Kindness

Attributed to Dalai Lama born 6 July 1935 · Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama; Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader
Attributed In copyright

Wikiquote lists this sentence in its main sourced section for the 14th Dalai Lama and gives the source as Kindness, Clarity, and Insight (1984), the Snow Lion collection translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins and Elizabeth Napper. It gives no page, and the Internet Archive's scan is lending-restricted, so we could not open the book to confirm the wording — which is why this page says attributed rather than verified. The sentiment is documented all over his work; this exact sentence is not pinned to a page.

Last verified 5 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“My true religion is Kindness” Attributed to the 14th Dalai Lama; Wikiquote names Kindness, Clarity, and Insight (1984) as the source, with no page and the wording unconfirmed — traced by Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and his publishers). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Dalai Lama — Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama; Tibetan Buddhist leader and 1989 Nobel Peace laureate. Theme: "My true religion is Kindness". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "My true religion is Kindness". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Attributed to
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama (b. 1935)
Source named by Wikiquote
“Kindness, Clarity, and Insight” (1984)
Translated and edited by
Jeffrey Hopkins and Elizabeth Napper — Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, New York
Page confirmed
None — no locator is given and the scan is lending-restricted

My true religion is Kindness.

Wikiquote records a longer variant immediately beside it — “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” — which it traces to Tibet, a Guide to the Land of Fascination (1988) by Trilok Chandra Majupuria and Indra Majupuria. That is the form most often seen in circulation.

Wikiquote: Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote’s page for the 14th Dalai Lama ↗ carries “My true religion is Kindness.” in its main Quotes section — not under Misattributed or Disputed — and sources it to Kindness, Clarity, and Insight (1984). No page number is given.
  • We confirmed the book exists exactly as named: the Internet Archive’s catalogue record ↗ gives Kindness, clarity, and insight, 1984, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, with Jeffrey Hopkins and Elizabeth Napper as translators and editors. We could not read inside it — the item is lending-restricted and the full text returns an authorisation error — so we are not claiming to have seen the sentence on a page.
  • Quote Investigator has published no investigation of this line, so there is no specialist finding to defer to here. That is our own search result, not a claim we can cite.
  • The Dalai Lama’s date of birth, 6 July 1935, and the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize are confirmed against his Wikipedia entry ↗.
In copyright

This is a living author’s twentieth-century writing, so it is in copyright wherever it was first printed. The book named as its source, Kindness, Clarity, and Insight, was published in 1984 by Snow Lion Publications — half a century after the 1931 United States public-domain cut-off. Quote & cite it, but do not treat it as free to reuse.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Context

Why it mattered

The appeal of the line is that it refuses the question it is asked. Invited to name his religion, the most recognisable Buddhist alive answers with a behaviour rather than a creed — something a Christian, an atheist or a Jain could adopt without changing anything else they believe.

That is a position he has argued consistently rather than a stray aphorism, which is exactly why the wording is so hard to pin: he has said versions of it for decades, in several languages and dozens of books, and the compilers who quote it rarely say which one they took it from.

Invited to name his religion, he answers with a behaviour rather than a creed.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Kindness Simplicity Love

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lamaen.wikiquote.org

Carries the line in the main sourced Quotes section, credited to Kindness, Clarity, and Insight (1984), with the longer "My religion is very simple" variant beside it traced to a 1988 guidebook.
Internet Archive: Kindness, Clarity, and Insight (1984)archive.org

Catalogue record for the book named as the source — Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, 1984, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins and Elizabeth Napper. The scan is lending-restricted, so the page could not be read.
Internet Archive: The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness (1990)archive.org

The Snow Lion anthology edited by Sidney Piburn that Wikiquote also draws on for his writing on kindness and compassion.
Wikipedia: 14th Dalai Lamaen.wikipedia.org

Biography confirming the birth date of 6 July 1935 and the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.

The author

About Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama

born 6 July 1935 · Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama; Tibetan Buddhist leader and 1989 Nobel Peace laureate

His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was born to a farming family in Amdo in 1935 and recognised as the Dalai Lama as a small child. He has lived in exile in India since 1959, and spent the following decades arguing a consistent case: that compassion is not a religious ornament but a practical requirement for human societies, and that it can be cultivated with or without religion. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The source named for this line (Chicago)

Bstan-’dzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV. Kindness, Clarity, and Insight. Translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins and Elizabeth Napper. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1984. Named as the source by Wikiquote, which gives no page; the wording was not confirmed against the text, which is lending-restricted.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘My true religion is Kindness’?” Last verified 5 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/my-true-religion-is-kindness/

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