Stalin vs. the Dalai Lama

Guest article by Julius Hungeski

Joseph Stalin said:

  • Gratitude … is a sickness suffered by dogs1.
  • To choose one’s victims, to prepare one’s plan minutely, to slake an implacable vengeance, and then to go to bed … there is nothing sweeter in the world. – Remark to colleague before signing almost 40,000 death warrants2.
  • The Pope? How many divisions has he got? – Said, May 13, 1935, to French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval, in reply to a suggestion that the Soviet Union should encourage Catholicism in order to propitiate the Pope3.

The Dalai Lama says:

  • The true test of honoring Buddha or God is the love one extends to fellow humans4.
  • If you succeed through violence at the expense of other’s rights and welfare, you have not solved the problem, but only created the seeds for another5.
  • Human problems will, of course, always remain. But the way to resolve them should be through dialogue and discussion6.
  • Ideals are the engine of progress7.
  • If anything I’ve said seems useful to you, I’m glad. If not, don’t worry. Just forget about it4.

Sources

1 ‘The Columbia World of Quotations’ 1996 Josef Stalin (1879–1953), Soviet leader. Quoted in Nikolai Tolstoy, Stalin’s Secret War, ch. 2 (1981).

2 ‘The Columbia World of Quotations’ 1996 Josef Stalin (1879–1953), Soviet leader. quoted in Robert Conquest, “Lenin’s Guffaw,” New Republic (Washington, D.C., Sept. 15, 1986).

3 ‘The Columbia World of Quotations’ 1996 Josef Stalin (1879–1953), Soviet leader. Quoted in Winston Churchill, “The Gathering Storm,” vol. 1, ch. 8, The Second World War (1948).

4 ‘Words of wisdom : selected quotes from His Holiness the Dalai Lama’ compiled by Margaret Gee, Kansas City : Andrews McMeel Pub., c2001

5 ‘Address by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania’ – 1 October 1991

6 ‘Message for the New Millenium’ – Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, January 1, 2000

7 ‘Ethics for the New Millennium’ – Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, New York, Riverhead Books, 1999, P. 197

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By Julius Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

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