There is no evidence to show that Buddha had said this quote about the difference between ‘liking’ and ‘loving’ - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
May 31, 2022
A post is being widely shared on social media claiming that Buddha said, “When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily”. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Buddha said, “When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily.”
Fact: There is no evidence to show that Buddha said something like that. According to ‘fakebuddhaquotes’ website which debunks popular quotes misattributed to Buddha, the quote cannot be attributed to Buddha. The quote was also present on the internet in various versions. It is found quoted as a conversation between Alexander the Great and Socrates. Similar quotes are also attributed to Osho sometimes. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
The quote has been attributed to Gautama Buddha at least since 2019. It had been tweeted by Harsh Goenka in December 2019. However, the quote had been shared by verified social media handles (here and here) without any attribution to Buddha.
When we searched online whether Buddha had made such statements, we could not find any credible evidence to confirm that Buddha said something like that.
According to ‘fakebuddhaquotes‘ website, the quote cannot be attributed to Buddha. The quote was also present on the internet in various versions. It is found quoted as a conversation between Alexander the Great and Socrates. Quotationize says it’s a bogus Buddha quote.
The article on the website fakebuddhaquotes is by Bodhipaksa. Bodhipaksa is an author who debunks popular quotes misattributed to the Buddha. He authored a recent book named, ‘I can’t believe it’s not Buddha! What Fake Buddha quotes can teach us about Buddhism’.
However, there are quotes online which are quite close to the one made in the claim. But they had been attributed to others like Osho.
To sum it up, there is no evidence to show that Buddha had said this quote about the difference between ‘liking’ and ‘loving’.