I believe that developing the compassion on which happiness depends demands a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, we need to restrain those factors which inhibit compassion. On the other, we need to cultivate those which are conducive to it. As we have seen, what is conducive to compassion is love, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, humility, and so on. What inhibits compassion is that lack of inner restraint which we have identified as the source of all unethical conduct. We find that by transforming our habits and dispositions, we can begin to perfect our overall state of heart and mind — that from which all our actions spring.

His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium