Chinese Classics Quotes

It may occasion surprise that the decree of a temporal power sufficed to give the classics a position that can be compared in other cultures to the place of sacred scriptures inspired by divine revelation. ~ Hellmut Wilhelm

(1) Risk-taking behavior, essential for efforts at innovation, is more widespread in some societies than in others. (2) The scientific outlook is a unique feature of post-Renaissance European society that has contributed heavily to its modern technological preeminence. (3) Tolerance of diverse views and of heretics fosters innovation, whereas a strongly traditional outlook (as in China's emphasis on ancient Chinese classics) stifles it. (4) Religions vary greatly in their relation to technological innovation: some branches of Judaism and Christianity are claimed to be especially compatible with it, while some branches of Islam, Hinduism, and Brahmanism may be especially incompatible with it. ~ Jared Diamond

The great Chinese classics have always said that it's better not to fight; that the clever man achieves his ends without violence; that a battle delayed is better than a battle fought. ~ John Keegan

I grew up thinking the only scriptures on earth were those inspired by the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament, the words and letters of Jesus and his apostles, and the scriptures of the Restoration. But how could the God I believed was the loving God of all the earth not speak somehow to everyone else? For years I wrestled with this idea. Having now read the Chinese classics, certainly Confucius, but others as well, I believe I have found the scriptural infusion God gave the Chinese nation. Mencius is my favorite, I must admit, and I do not hesitate to call what he bestowed upon the world scripture--some of the most optimistic, holy writing the world has. ~ S. Michael Wilcox

When my brother, ... , was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to grasp and memorize. Father a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: 'Just my luck!' he would say. 'What a pity she was not born a man!' But then I gradually realized that people were saying 'It's bad enough when a man flaunts his Chinese learning; she will come to no good,' and since I have avoided writing the simplest character. ~ Murasaki Shikibu

Suicide. This is the exact opposite of last time, for this time I'm experiencing a kind of pleasure in life, in being alive, a pleasure in living that I've never experienced before, and I'm hopeful and confident that I can become someone with dignity. I know now why I couldn't change certain characteristics and certain things about myself, but it's not a problem anymore. Certain pathways I failed to open in the past have now opened. My whole self is radiating light. I see with clarity. I understand the cause and effect of the last year. What I had imagined I've now attained. It's as if I can see my life right in front of my eyes, and all I have to do is reach out and draw it in... Now I don't feel the acute pain I felt before; I feel enlightened, at peace. It's as if I've instantly found the secret of "Suffering", how to bear it and how to endure it... Yes, this time I've decided to kill myself not because I can't live with suffering and not because I don't enjoy being alive. I love life passionately, and my wish to die is a wish to live...

Yes, I've chosen suicide. The endpoint of this process of "Forgiveness". Not to punish anyone or to protest a wrong. I've chosen suicide with a clarity I've never possessed before, with a rational resolve and sense of calm, in order to pursue the ultimate meaning of my life, act on my belief about the beauty between two people... I take complete responsibility for my life, and even if my physical body disappears upon death, I do ~ Qiu Miaojin

Of all the peoples of the world, the Chinese are probably the most at home with their excrement. They know its value. For 4,000 years they have used raw human feces to fertilize fields. ~ Rose George

warriors. In 2007 Cooper fought a Chinese long-sword instructor on a Hong Kong rooftop - he never thought the experience would help him write battle scenes. In addition to being a member of the Mongoliad writing team, Cooper has written articles for various magazines. His autobiographical piece "Growing Up Black and White," published in Seattle Weekly, was awarded Social Issues Reporting Article of the Year by the ~ Neal Stephenson

Three year sof unconditional MFN have not lead to any subtantial improvement in human rights, trade and nuclear proliferation practice of the Chinese government. In addition to the trade barriers, China has marred our trade relationship wit prison labor or export and other unfair trade practices. ~ Nancy Pelosi

You know how someone - something - surprises you. You wake up a little bit. That's done through Chinese cuisine - for example, through dishes of artifice. That's a whole sub-tradition in Chinese cuisine. To create a dish that comes to the table looking like one thing but actually is something else. ~ Nicole Mones

I took Japanese in high school. I'm Chinese, though, and I just fell in love with the language and the culture. ~ Matthew Moy

The news filled me with such euphoria that for an instant I was numb. My ingrained self-censorship immediately started working: I registered the fact that there was an orgy of weeping going on around me, and that I had to come up with some suitable performance. There seemed nowhere to hide my lack of correct emotion except the shoulder of the woman in front of me, one of the student officials, who was apparently heartbroken. I swiftly buried my head in her shoulder and heaved appropriately. As so often in China, a bit of ritual did the trick. Sniveling heartily she made a movement as though she was going to turn around and embrace me I pressed my whole weight on her from behind to keep her in her place, hoping to give the impression that I was in a state of abandoned grief.

In the days after Mao's death, I did a lot of thinking. I knew he was considered a philosopher, and I tried to think what his 'philosophy' really was. It seemed to me that its central principle was the need or the desire? for perpetual conflict. The core of his thinking seemed to be that human struggles were the motivating force of history and that in order to make history 'class enemies' had to be continuously created en masse. I wondered whether there were any other philosophers whose theories had led to the suffering and death of so many. I thought of the terror and misery to which the Chinese population had been subjected. For what?

But Mao's theory might just be the extension o ~ Jung Chang

My mother didn't teach me lessons about being Chinese as strongly as she did the notion of who I was as a female. ~ Amy Tan

And indeed, it has been suggested that the defining moves in Chinese speculation work on a very different model, where words are part of, say, an exemplary skill-practice, meant to guide behavior in such a way as to alter perception and evaluation, rather than to describe what is really so or what is really good. ~ Brook Ziporyn

The mantras, however, are mysterious and each word is profound in meaning. When they are transliterated into Chinese, the original meanings are modified and the long and short vowels are confused. In the end we can get roughly similar sounds but not precisely the same ones. Unless we use Sanskrit, it is hardly possible to differentiate the long and short sounds. The purpose of retaining the source materials, indeed, lies here. ~ Kukai

I was extremely curious about the alternatives to the kind of life I had been leading, and my friends and I exchanged rumors and scraps of information we dug from official publications. I was struck less by the West's technological developments and high living standards than by the absence of political witch-hunts, the lack of consuming suspicion, the dignity of the individual, and the incredible amount of liberty. To me, the ultimate proof of freedom in the West was that there seemed to be so many people there attacking the West and praising China. Almost every other day the front page of Reference, the newspaper which carded foreign press items, would feature some eulogy of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. At first I was angered by these, but they soon made me see how tolerant another society could be. I realized that this was the kind of society I wanted to live in: where people were allowed to hold different, even outrageous views. I began to see that it was the very tolerance of oppositions, of protesters, that kept the West progressing.

Still, I could not help being irritated by some observations. Once I read an article by a Westerner who came to China to see some old friends, university professors, who told him cheerfully how they had enjoyed being denounced and sent to the back end of beyond, and how much they had relished being reformed. The author concluded that Mao had indeed made the Chinese into 'new people' who would regard what was misery to a Weste ~ Jung Chang

I didn't want to be a catcher. It was thrust upon me, as they say in the classics. ~ Mickey Cochrane

When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, others build windmills. ~ Chinese Proverb

1 )Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them.
2)A classic is a work which constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off. ~ Italo Calvino

Some people think that as the Chinese economy becomes more and more capitalistic it will inevitably become more democratic. ~ Peter L. Berger

Often GOP political strategy seems like the human wave theory of the Chinese military translated to politics. Where Beijing uses masses of soldiers to overwhelm their adversaries, the GOP uses huge campaign budgets as a substitute for strategy, thought or issues. ~ Dick Morris

I wanted to explore what all this new-found wealth means for the different generations of Chinese who have to live together in this place that is transforming at warp speed into the richest country on the planet. ~ Kevin Kwan

I start by using Chinese and many of the sounds of other languages are similar. ~ Andy Lau

Perhaps he found it strange being accompanied by a Chinese-Nigerian arms trafficking pirate, but the Irish priest had just followed me silently on board the covert government transport. ~ Dayo Ntwari

'The Conjuring' is incredibly effective and scary without the use of blood, gore, and death. It's a horror film that emphasizes atmosphere and suspense in the tradition of classics like 'Psycho' or 'The Others.' ~ Toby Emmerich

My major in college was Chinese Studies. It was very intentional. ~ Mira Sorvino

The more one knows the less one believes. ~ Chinese Fortune Cookie

It's something I call an invisible thread. It is, as the old Chinese proverb tells us, something that connects two people who are destined to meet, regardless of time and place and circumstance. Some legends call it the red string of fate; others, the thread of destiny. ~ Laura Schroff

Workers were required to stay six months, and even then permission to quit was not always granted. The factory held the first two months of every worker's pay; leaving without approval meant losing that money and starting over somewhere else. That was a fact of factory life you couldn't know from the outside: Getting into a factory was easy. The hard part was getting out. ~ Leslie T. Chang

I was a hyperactive kid, and it took awhile for me to find the right teacher. My master was a Shaolin kung fu teacher, but he also taught tai chi, Chinese medicine, brush painting - he was adept at all facets of Chinese culture. ~ Daniel Wu

Since then, as the Chinese navy becomes larger and more wide-ranging, the bent toward Mahan has only intensified in Beijing, especially with the rise of Indian sea power, which the Chinese fear; the Indians, for their part, view the Chinese in similar Mahanian terms. ~ Robert D. Kaplan

The Chinese had accused the Tibetans of being terrorists, which is weird. A Tibetan terrorist is like an Amish hacker. It just doesn't fit. ~ Robin Williams

Besides," said Suriyawong. "This was not a rescue operation."
"What was it, target practice? Chinese skeet?"
"An offer of transportation to an invited guest of the Hegemon," said Suriyawong. "And the loan of a knife."
Achilles held up the bloody thing, dangling it from the point. "Yours?" he asked.
"Unless you want to clean it," said Suriyawong.
Achillese handed it to him. Suriyawong took out his cleaning kit and wiped down the blade, then began to polish it.
"You wanted me to die," said Achilles quietly.
"I expected you to solve your own problems," said Suriyawong. ~ Orson Scott Card

I have been investigating this modern problem of decline in readership and my conclusion is that it has little to do with bad readership and a whole lot with a difference in information speed. Frankly, the modern brain is much faster than the classical brain was in how it absorbs information and novels do not reflect this development. They are simply not dense enough. Too slow, not the right tempo - bores the shit out of a modern brain! There's the real problem: our brains have developed into different speed levels that authors cant adjust to. It has nothing whatsoever to do with quality: it has rather a whole lot to do with people claiming to be authors who are incapable of concentrating their ideas in the right sort of space, and rather smear out a few already halfbaked ideas over 30 plus pages. Hello! Do you think its weird a facebooktrained mind, capable of digesting enormous amounts of information at quick speeds, is bored shitless with that? The problem is not bad readership but rather bad authorship: authors that cannot adjust to the times. And since there are a zillion books published every day of authors that just cant keep up with the speed of the times, and criticism hardly exists anymore in modern society, it becomes simply very unattractive to read books, unless one keeps to the classics, which are books that are much more dense at essence. ~ Martijn Benders

Class, I'd like us all to give a warm mayflower elementary welcome to your new friend and classmate Jing Jang!"
"Jin Wang"
"Jin wang!"
"He and his family recently moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!"
"San Francisco."
"San Francisco!"
"Yes, Timmy."
"My momma says Chinese people eat dogs."
"Now be nice, Timmy!" -km sure Jin doesn't do that! In fact, Jin's family probably stopped that sort of thing as soon as they came to the united states!"
The only other asian in my class was Suzy Nakamura.
When the class finally figured out that we weren't related, rumors began to circulate that suzy and I were arranged to be married on her thirteenth birthday.
We avoided each other as much as possible.
(30-31) ~ Gene Luen Yang

Chinese emissions are a problem not just for its own people but also for the world. It has now overtaken the U.S. as the biggest carbon emitter; most of the coal that is burned anywhere on Earth is burned in China. ~ James Fallows

In fact,I believe the reason why the Chinese failed to develop botany and zoology is that the Chinese scholar cannot stare coldly and unemotionally at a fish without immediately thinking of how it tastes in the mouth and wanting to eat it. The reason I don't trust Chinese surgeons is that I am afraid that when a Chinese surgeon cuts up my liver in search of a gall-stone, he may forget about the stone and put my liver in a frying pan. ~ Lin Yutang

The missionaries did not come to Foochow to acquire property, learn the language, or even to establish amicable relations with their Chinese neighbors. Nor, although Welton, White, and Wiley practiced medicine, was the relief of suffering itself their goal. Even though the missionaries established schools in the 1850s it cannot be said that they had come to promote education. Nor, although they loaned books and showed gadgets to curious officials, was their aim the promotion of intercultural understanding. Their objective in coming to the mission field was amazingly simple and straightforward. It was to make converts to Christianity. ~ Ellsworth C. Carlson

I like the fact that in ancient Chinese art the great painters always included a deliberate flaw in their work: human creation is never perfect. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

If the spark doesn't come, that's a pity; but we do not read the classics out of duty or respect, but only out of love. ~ Italo Calvino

First, there was Confucius. Then, the sayings of Chairman Mao. And now the pithy, ironic, and humorous insights of Ai Weiwei. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection, which reflects a well-developed philosophy as well as a keen understanding of the Chinese Communist system. This is China made easy and interesting. ~ Jerome A. Cohen

With all my heart I beseech and beg my two hundred million female compatriots to assume their responsibility as citizens. Arise! Arise! Chinese women, arise! ~ Qiu Jin

All hells in this world are the prisons you make in your own heart; all battles must be fought there'," said Charlie. "My grandma used to say that to me. ~ Darren McKeeman

Looking back on my life, I'd say I am grateful to my two sons for having brought me up. It could not have been easy - for them or for their father. For me it was a "Poetry Workshop," a way of doing poetry by another means (in no sense a continuation of Iowa) - as well as the sort of upbringing I never got from my mother.

As luck would have it, I had a poet, a classical poet, for a mother. She didn't write free verse; she wrote poetry until the last years of her life in the classical Chinese style. So a lot of work was done for me - when you imbibe Tang and Sung poets with a mother who chanted verses on the balcony in the moonlight. ~ Wong May

Apart from such chaotic classics as these, my own taste in novel reading is one which I am prepared in a rather especial manner, not only to declare, but to defend. My taste is for the sensational novel, the detective story, the story about death, robbery and secret societies; a taste which I share in common with the bulk at least of the male population of this world. There was a time in my own melodramatic boyhood when I became quite fastidious in this respect. I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I dismissed the story as tea-table twaddle, which it often really was. But we all lose a little of that fine edge of austerity and idealism which sharpened our spiritual standard in our youth. I have come to compromise with the tea-table and to be less insistent about the sofa. As long as a corpse or two turns up in the second, the third, nay even the fourth or fifth chapter, I make allowance for human weakness, and I ask no more. But a novel without any death in it is still to me a novel without any life in it. I admit that the very best of the tea-table novels are great art - for instance, Emma or Northanger Abbey. Sheer elemental genius can make a work of art out of anything. Michelangelo might make a statue out of mud, and Jane Austen could make a novel out of tea - that much more contem ~ G.K. Chesterton

There were only two other Chinese families in this town of 25,000, but to our parents, the determining factor was the quality of the public school system. ~ Steven Chu

In the infinitesimal glow of the stars,
the trees and flowers were strewing
their cool odos. There was no moon. ~ Sylvia Plath

The fact is Qatar, Etihad, Emirates, Singapore, Garuda, all of the three Chinese airlines, Air New Zealand - the fact is that international aviation relies very much upon agreements between nation-states, and it is not an area in which you have free market operations. ~ Anthony Albanese

I had never been in a supermarket before coming to America. At home, my parents wouldn't let me open the refrigerator, because they worried I'd damage the door by opening it too many times. ~ Wendi Deng Murdoch

If we find ourselves tempted to celebrate one approach over the other, we should remember the caution of the Chinese sage Confucius, who told his followers, "Study without thinking and you are blind; think without studying and you are in danger." Formal ~ Kent Nerburn

after having, for instance, reproduced in a picture the right shoulder or the right ear of a figure, we deem it totally vain and useless to reproduce the left shoulder or the left ear. We do not draw sounds, but their vibrating invervals. We do not paint diseases, but their symtoms and their consequences. ~ Owen Jones Classics