“You yourself as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve love and affection.”
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Misattributed quote
Traced to Sharon Salzberg's 1995 reworking of a Pali Udana passage; there is no connection to Gandhi at all, so the Gandhi tag is a secondary misattribution.
Likely origin: Not Gandhi, and not verbatim Buddha. Sharon Salzberg's paraphrase (Lovingkindness, 1995) of an Udana verse; commonly misattributed to the Buddha, and here re-misattributed to Gandhi.
Review the attribution sourceAbout this quote
Often hung on Gandhi, this line isn't his. It's Sharon Salzberg's paraphrase of an old Buddhist verse, and it gets pinned on the Buddha too. The idea still holds, though: people extend patience and warmth to everyone but themselves, as if they were the one exception to the rule. They are not.
When to use it
- A caregiver who never misses anyone else's doctor's appointment finally books her own overdue checkup.
- A perfectionist grants himself the same grace after a slip that he'd offer a friend without a second thought.
- A student stops skipping meals to cram and treats rest as non-negotiable rather than a reward he must earn.