Education and the warm heart–if you combine these two, then your education, your knowledge, will be constructive. You are yourself then becoming a happy person.

The Dalai Lama contrasts mere intellectual attainment with education guided by compassion. “Warm heart” signals an ethical-emotional orientation—kindness, empathy, and concern for others—without which knowledge can become sterile, self-serving, or even harmful. When learning is joined to humane motivation, it becomes “constructive”: it contributes to individual flourishing and to the well-being of the wider community. The final claim links this moral psychology to happiness: cultivating compassion alongside understanding is presented not as a sacrifice but as a practical route to a stable, inward contentment. The quote reflects a recurring theme in his public teaching: secular ethics and compassion as complements to modern education.