Chinese Wisdom Quotes

The human body is a miniature version of the universe - the eyes and ears are the sun and moon, breath is air, blood is rain. ~ Lisa See

无惧无急 (The fearless do not hurry.) ~ Eric Micha'el Leventhal

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

wonderful bit of Chinese wisdom that asks, "When is the best time to plant a tree?" The answer is "20 years ago, but the next best time is right now. ~ Paul S. Boynton

The crack in your heart allows light in. ~ GOOD FORTUNE page 238 ~ Leslie Bratspis

In an era of billion-person countries and trillion-pound economies, we need to find ways to amplify our voice. We are most likely to be heard when the Chinese negotiate with a £10 trillion E.U., not a £1.5 trillion Britain. ~ Douglas Alexander

Warraner looked pleasantly surprised at the question, like a Mormon who had suddenly found himself invited into a house for coffee, cake, and a discussion of the wit and wisdom of Joseph Smith. ~ John Connolly

People may forget the quantity of your works but cannot forget the quality of your works. ~ Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

I am not here to judge whether people are locked in poverty because of themselves or because of the society in which they live. All I know is that they are there and we are trying to do something about it. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Wisdom is like the rain.
It's supply is unlimited, but it comes down according to what the occasion requires -
in winter and spring, in summer and autumn,
always in due measure, more or less,
but the source of that rain is the oceans itself, which has no limits. ~ Rumi

It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same for love. ~ Robert Frost

Acknowledge and accept that there will be chaotic times while being on your raft from being lost in true freedom. Engulfed by darkness at sea, we are consumed by a great loneliness that has consistently existed even when people surrounded us, and that is when we must throw all that is heavy into the water, and float independently through to the present. ~ Forrest Curran

When one practices discipline and moves from the beginner's territory to immovable wisdom, one makes a return and falls back to the level of the beginner. ~ Takuan Soho

When Your Life Looks Back,

When your life looks back--
As it will, at itself, at you--what will it say?

Inch of colored ribbon cut from the spool.
Flame curl, blue-consuming the log it flares from.
Bay leaf. Oak leaf. Cricket. One among many.

Your life will carry you as it did always,
With ten fingers and both palms,
With horizontal ribs and upright spine,
With its filling and emptying heart,
That wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled, in return.
You gave it. What else could do?

Immersed in air or in water.
Immersed in hunger or anger.
Curious even when bored.
Longing even when running away.

"What will happen next?"--
the question hinged in your knees, your ankles,
in the in-breaths even of weeping.
Strongest of magnets, the future impartial drew you in.
Whatever direction you turned toward was face to face.
No back of the world existed,
No unseen corner, no test. No other earth to prepare for.

This, your life had said, its only pronoun.
Here, your life had said, its only house.
Let, your life had said, its only order.

And did you have a choice in this? You did--

Sleeping and waking,
the horses around you, the mountains around you,
The buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.
Those of your own kind around you--

A few times, you stood on your head.
A few t ~ Jane Hirshfield

Axiom: Hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of wisdom. ~ Gustave Flaubert

You're looking for the light,
Forgetting
You have an astonishing light,
inside you,
which can enlighten the whole world. ~ Debasish Mridha

O Lord, help me not to despise or oppose what I do not understand. ~ William Penn

Constitutional democracy, you see, is no romantic notion. It's our defense against ourselves, the one foe who might defeat us. ~ Bill Moyers

The setters up, therefore, and the advocates of the Christian system of faith, could not but foresee that the continually progressive knowledge that man would gain by the aid of science, of the power and wisdom of God, manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all the works of creation, would militate against, and call into question, the truth of their system of faith; and therefore it became necessary to their project, and this they effected by restricting the idea of learning to the dead study of dead languages. ~ Thomas Paine

Worry is a subtle way of telling God that He's fallen asleep at the wheel and that things aren't under His authority, but ours. ~ Margaret Feinberg

I was an All-American in wrestling in high school, was National Champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999 and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes, which includes my eight-plus years as CEO of a sports nutrition company. ~ Timothy Ferriss

I'm very much involved with Asian art and its theory and practice, mainly Chinese because that was quite sophisticated. I tend to look at that more than I look the Western. ~ Brice Marden

A deep, wise, and wonderful exploration of the Vedanta path for relationships both with yourself and with others. In this book, Shubhraji provides everything you need to create healthy, fulfilling relationships, using ancient wisdom, beautiful stories, tools, and exercises. This book is a must read for those on a serious spiritual journey. ~ Arielle Ford

The emphasis of my government is to take advantage from the Chinese experience in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, energy, infrastructure, development, health and high efficiency irrigation. ~ Asif Ali Zardari

Wisdom, then, is how to live in God's world in God's way, ~ Tremper Longman III

There are moments of silence and smiles and breaths taken away from the chest, wherein you truly feel a deep understanding for your position in your life, in this world, and within the walls of yourself that you call bones and tissue. You madly understand yourself (your thoughts, your desires, what you want to be living for, really) and it's amazing because it is within those moments where you will come to see how very few people should actually be important to your heart and to your path: because your heart and your path are glorious and different and breathtaking and not everyone belongs there with you. We all often feel pangs of loneliness and we clamour to hold onto other people because it has not yet dawned on us, that not everyone we wish to hold onto will fit on our paths with us. If you could come to an understanding of your own space, and what it means to occupy that space, then you would come to know, and to feel, and to realise, that we are not lonely in our hearts because others do not occupy with us; rather, we are painfully lonely in our hearts because we do not occupy our own skin. We do not occupy our own souls. We do not occupy the space we've been given by our own dreams, desires, longings... what makes you cry? What makes you laugh? It doesn't matter if you're the only one who cries or who laughs! What matters is that you fill up your space so full that your soul rubs up against your bones and pushes up against just below the surface of your skin. You will ~ C. JoyBell C.

I have shaped and nourished my mind for years to hail all women on earth as my sisters and their problems as my problems. When I am engaged in a conversation with one of my sisters anywhere in the world, my eyes are not subconsciously driven to take a quick peek down her blouse. I belong to all women, all men, everywhere, as a brother. And being a brother calls for the responsibility of thinking, feeling and behaving like a brother, instead of a potential mate-hunter. Here I am by no means insinuating that all men should see all women as sisters, rather I am pointing out that all civilized men should at the very least have the decency to see women as persons, and not as objects of sexual gratification or as potential mating partners, because only then we shall succeed as a conscientious species to give a safe and non-predatory environment to our children. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Truth was something intangible, unseen, which sometimes we stumbled upon and did not recognize, but was found, and held, and understood only by old people near their death, or sometimes by the very pure, the very young. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

The notebooks of Paul Brunton represent the acme of wisdom on the nature of human spirituality. Every serious student of this subject will profit enormously by becoming acquainted with Brunton's seminal work. ~ Kenneth Ring

We often learn to just earn dirty paper and forget to gain the wisdom needed to earn a life. ~ Debasish Mridha

Each of us has been put on earth with the ability to do something well. We cheat ourselves and the world if we don't use that ability as best we can. ~ George Allen, Sr.

Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions. ~ Marcus Aurelius

If we are as free as we like to believe, then it makes sense that we are free to choose who we want to be. And then we set out into the world to acquire the knowledge, the wisdom, and the experience we need in order to become the painters, the dancers, the actors, the writers we have always dreamed of being.
We need a reason for everything we do in life.
Artists are guided by passion, by the need to create. And our emotions and dreams are amplified by our art. Whether a conscious decision or not, in order to be an artist, one has to create art. ~ Cristian Mihai

I didn't drink because I knew that if I jumped into a bottle, I'd pull the cork in after me. ~ Ron Clifford

I do not know who I am, said the wise man, and went his way of knowledge unto the end of days. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know what is not to be put into a sermon, as what is. ~ Lord David Cecil

Mr. Stegall has birthed a very important book that will help us as a people go to the next level. This book is very important because it's tackling issues that many brush under the rug. Mr. Stegall has proven that he's been given a message that the world should hear and this book is proof of that. Because of his insight and wisdom, this book will reach areas and points that other books around this topic have not. This is definitely a book we need! ~ Tony A. Gaskins Jr.

That's going to be your trouble - judgment about yourself.
(Tender is the Night) ~ F Scott Fitzgerald