Wit & Attitude Quote by Dalai Lama

A lot of moral talk starts with commandments; this one starts with a mood. By rooting “all goodness” in “appreciation for goodness,” the Dalai Lama isn’t arguing that people behave well because they fear punishment or crave praise. He’s insisting that ethics is cultivated from the inside out: you notice goodness, you value it, and that attention becomes the conditions under which goodness can reliably grow.

The metaphor does quiet heavy lifting. “Roots” and “soil” shift morality from a scoreboard to an ecosystem. Goodness isn’t a heroic event so much as a living practice that depends on what you feed daily: admiration, gratitude, the habit of recognizing care when you see it. The subtext is subtly corrective. If you can’t appreciate goodness in others, you’ll struggle to produce it yourself; cynicism becomes a form of moral drought. This is not naïveté so much as strategy: train perception, and behavior follows.

Context matters. As a religious and political leader shaped by exile and the long shadow of Tibet’s occupation, the Dalai Lama often frames resistance without hatred and authority without coercion. “Appreciation” is a nonviolent discipline: it refuses the easy fuel of resentment while still asking for moral clarity. The line also works as a rebuke to performative virtue. If goodness is merely branded, scored, and broadcast, it has no roots; it’s a cut flower. The quote’s intent is practical: build a society by teaching people what to notice, not just what to obey.