Lu Xun Quotes

A woman has so many parts to her body, life is very hard indeed.

With the weight of four thousand years of cannibalism bearing down upon me, even if I was once innocent how can I now face real humans?

I entreat fresh visions from the painters. Be lavish with your vermilion to portray the mountains in the spring.

Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.

I felt that if a man's proposals met with approval, it should encourage him; if they met with opposition, it should make him fight back; but the real tragedy for him was to lift up his voice among the living and meet with no response neither approval nor opposition just as if he were left helpless in a boundless desert.

Revolution is a bitter thing, mixed with filth and blood, not as lovely or perfect as the poets think. It is eminently down to earth, involving many humble, tiresome tasks, not so romantic as the poets think ... So it is easy for all who have romantic dreams about revolution to become disillusioned on closer acquaintance, when a revolution is actually carried out.

Women have a mother-nature and a daughter-nature; there are no women with a wife-nature. The quality of wife is an acquired character; it is a combination of mother and daughter.

Discontent is the wheel that moves people forward.

Imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation. But you know since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a good turn?

John Stuart Mill declared that tyranny makes men cynical. He did not know that a Republic makes them silent.

I could not blot out hope, for hope belongs to the future.

If men refuse to be kindled, sparks can only burn themselves out, just as paper images and carriages burn out on the street during funerals.

Despair is as hollow and deceptive as hope!

Trust only him who doubts.

Why should young people look for guides who hang out gided placards to advertise themselves? They would do better to look for friends, unite with them, and advance together towards some quarter where it seems possible to survive.

I have a dream that I will fulfill. And nothing else will distract me from my path.

But a people unable to reform will not be able to preserve its old culture either.

To be suspicious is not a fault. To be suspicious all the time without coming to a conclusion is the defect.

Though science has given us many marvels, it has also spoiled many of our pleasant dreams.

All who have read a few old books have picked up the old tactics of considering every new idea a 'heresy' which must be rooted out.

The most horrible thing is not a government that stages public executions, but a government that secretly disposes of its victims.

Let those who hanker after the past return to the past! Let those who want to leave the world leave the world! Let those who want to ascend to heaven do so! Let those whose souls want to leave their bodies expire quickly! The earth today should be inhabited by man with a firm hold on the present, a firm hold on the earth.

When the Chinese suspect someone of being a potential troublemaker, they always resort to one of two methods: they crush him, or they hoist him on a pedestal.

Since someone ate crabs, others must have eaten spiders as well. However, they were not tasty. So afterwards, people stopped eating them. These people also deserve our heartfelt gratitude.

The sorrow and happiness of those people are not related.
I only find them noisy.

Like students going to school, the planes on their bombing missions fly over Beijing each morning. And each time I hear their engines attack the air I feel a certain slight tension, as if I were witnessing the invasion of Death, though this heightens my consciousness of the existence of Life.

Creation, even when it is a mere outpouring from the heart, wishes to find a public. By definition, creation is sociable. Yet it can be satisfied with merely one single reader: an old friend, a lover.

But if a few awake, you can't say there is no hope of destroying the iron house.

You have to reform yourself before reforming society and the world.

Where are now the warriors of the world of the spirit? Where are those who raise their voices for truth, who lead us to goodness, beauty, strength and health? Where are those who utter heartwarming words, who will lead us out of the wilderness? Our homes are gone and the nation is destroyed, yet we have no Jeremiah crying out his last sad song to the world and to posterity.

It is in the nature of things that some people should be unlucky enough to get their heads chopped off.

To protect myself from the rear, I have to stand slantwise.

The ability to forget the past enables people to free themselves gradually from the pain they once suffered; but it also often makes them repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.

Whoever thinks he is objective must already be half drunk.

As long as there shall be stones, the seeds of fire will not die.

The world is changing from day to day; it is high time for our writers to take off their masks, look frankly, keenly, and boldly at life, and write about real flesh and blood. It is high time for a brand-new arena for literature, high time for some bold fighters to charge headlong into battle!

I naturally believe there will be a future, but I do not waste my time imagining its radiant beauty ... It seems to me that we ought to think first about the present. Even if the present is desperately dark, I do not wish to leave it. Will tomorrow be free from darkness? We'll talk about that tomorrow.