Category: Fake Buddha Quotes

I found this quote in an article on Medium.com, written by Sinem Günel and titled “6 Quotes By Buddha That Will Change How You See The World And Yourself.”

Needless to say, not one of the quotes is by the Buddha, suggesting once again that some people have a positive attraction toward bogus quotes — a kind of “bullshit detector” in reverse.

Here’s what Günel offers us as the supposed teachings of the Buddha.

1. “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
2. “Don’t respond to rudeness. When people are

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Read the rest of this article » ““Never respond to rudeness. When people are rude to you, they reveal who they are, not who you are.””

A friend recently asked me about this quote — “Of all footprints, that of the elephant is supreme. Similarly, of all mindfulness meditation, that on death is supreme” — because she’s scrupulous about sourcing her attributions. I saw nothing suspicious about the quote at all but I like to help out a Dharma sister and so I went hunting.

The quote is very much in keeping with the style and content of the early scriptures, but I couldn’t find anything corresponding to this in either Access to Insight or, more tellingly, in Sutta Central. So it didn’t seem to …

Read the rest of this article » ““Of all footprints, that of the elephant is supreme. Similarly, of all mindfulness meditation, that on death is supreme.””

This one just came to my attention today. I spotted it in the feed of a Twitter user who is one of the worst offenders I know of where it comes to passing on Fake Buddha Quotes.  As far as I’m aware it doesn’t resemble anything the Buddha is reported to have said in any scripture from any era — and it’s definitely not from the early scriptures, which are our best bet for an accurate representation of what the Buddha literally said.

It’s yet another quote taken from the Japanese book, “The Teaching of Buddha,” which is a Gideon …

Read the rest of this article » ““Nothing remains without change.””

This is actually an extensive quote:

If we are like rock and something cuts into us, it will leave its mark, perhaps for generations to come.

If we become like sand and something cuts into us, it will leave its mark, but soon that mark will be gone.

And, if we become like water and something cuts into us, as soon as the mark appears, it will disappear, forever.

So far I’ve only seen it on a website connected with the Alexander Technique (which I understand is a kind of posture alignment therapy). The site says that this is a …

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A website that linked to me took one of the genuine scriptural quotations on this site and presented it in a misleading way. It then went on to say:

Another quote from the Buddha, that I don’t believe is in dispute, is, “One moment can change a day, one day can change a life, and one life can change the world.”

Of course there is no dispute about whether this is from the Buddha, because it definitely isn’t! This isn’t the kind of thing that you’ll find in the early scriptures.

I’m not entirely sure of its origins. The …

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This one was just brought to my attention. It’s listed on the badly misnamed “Quotes Master” site as being by the Buddha. It’s not. Neither are many of the quotes you’ll find there.

Let’s talk about prayer. No, let’s have the Buddha talk about prayer. Here’s one good image of the fruitlessness of merely wishing for something:

Suppose a man in need of butter, looking for butter, wandering in search of butter, would sprinkle water on water in a crock and twirl it with a churn-stick. If he were to sprinkle water on water in a crock and

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Read the rest of this article » ““Faith and prayer both are invisible, but they make impossible things possible””

See, “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.”

Stephen Feldman, one of my connections on Google Plus (the world’s best social media site, which Google is unfortunately pulling the plug on) brought this one to my attention. It’s one I’d never seen before.

It often surprises me the things that people take to be quotes from the Buddha. Then I remember that if you’ve no experience of the Buddhist scriptures then you’ve no idea of the patterns and language that the Buddha’s recorded as having used. Of course those records may be wrong. They probably are. But they’re all we have to go on. And if you’ve never …

Read the rest of this article » ““The way to happiness is: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, give much. Fill your life with love. Do as you would be done by.””

André Olivier found this one as an image in an online comment and sent it to me, saying, “It seems like the strangest example of a fake Buddha quote … It just seems wrong in every way.” He has a good instinct.

This is not the kind of thing the Buddha said. He didn’t say there was no god. In the scriptures he’s depicted as talking with gods, although those passages may be intended to be taken humorously.

There’s one rather hilarious (by 2,500-year-old standards) passage where a monk is depicted as having worked his way up through all the …

Read the rest of this article » ““There is no God. Don’t waste your time or money for him. Only this world is true. And it is the only truth.””