Chinese Classics Quotes & Sayings

Gaining insight into one's underlying motives, it seems, is more like a belief conversion than a self-discovery process — Albert Bandura

Set a church clock wrong to fool the devil, my mother always told me. But in this case I suspect the devil is not fooled.

Not for a minute. — Joanne Harris

(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

To bend the work of nature to your will; to make the trees of the earth useful to human beings - what could be more admirable , more exciting than this? That is what I would say to any boy who has his life before him. — Amitav Ghosh

Lesson for the day: vision is always ahead of execution - and it should be. — David Bayles

Confucius - or Kongzi, which means Master Kong - was not born to power, but his idiosyncrasies and ideas made him the Zelig of the Chinese classics. — Evan Osnos

It is bad enough that so many people believe things without any evidence. What is worse is that some people have no conception of evidence and regard facts as just someone else's opinion. — Thomas Sowell

Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living. — Oscar Wilde

Countless words
count less
than the silent balance
between yin and yang — Lao-Tzu

Success is for those who are persistent in the face of reality. The harsher the truth, the stronger they hold on to their dreams. — Pooja Ruprell

Every time I must find something to do that will look like something a little beyond my capabilities. — Italo Calvino

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

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

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

Now when the ancient Egyptians, awestruck and wondering, turned their eyes to the heavens, they concluded that two gods, the sun and the moon, were primeval and eternal; and they called the former Osiris, the latter Isis. — Diodorus Siculus

Granny said there was a law about having to eat Pizza at Christmas. Granny was full of nonsense, of course, but [Elsa] went along with it because she likes pizza. And Christmas food kind of sucks if you are a vegetarian. — Fredrik Backman

No human being is illegal. — Elie Wiesel

Taking a picture is like giving a piece of your soul away. You allow other people to see the world through your eyes. — Katja Michael

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