Quotes by Chinese Authors - Page 16

Everything's science fiction until someone makes it science fact
Marie Lu
If you don’t want anyone to misunderstand you, go into yourself and thoroughly investigate and understand yourself. No one will ever misunderstand you ever again.
Hong Curley
Understanding that rests in what it does not understand is the finest.
Zhuangzi
Men all pay homage to what understanding understands, but no one understands enough to rely upon what understanding does not understand and thereby come to understand.
Zhuangzi
Understanding requires a person’s ability to grasp or comprehend information.
Pearl Zhu
Tsze-kung wished to dispense with the sacrifice of a sheep for the New Moon ceremony. The Master said, "You love the sheep; I love the ceremony.
Confucius
cautiously, you avoid trouble. See all that you can – then, if you forget the perilous and
Confucius
Good Samaritan is only good when they think no one else will be the Good Samaritan.
Vann Chow
There is often no line between perfection and evil.
Ken Liu
Yet, my grandfather was not a monster. He was simply a man of ordinary moral courage whose capacity for great evil was revealed to his and my everlasting shame. Labeling someone a monster implies that he is from another world, one which has nothing to do with us. It cuts off the bonds of affection and fear, assures us of our own superiority, but there's nothing learned, nothing gained. It's simple, but it's cowardly. I know now that only by empathizing with a man like my grandfather can we understand the depth of the suffering he caused. There are no monsters. The monster is us.
Ken Liu
He who searches for evil, must first look at his own reflection.
Confucius
Life, death, preservation, loss, failure, success, poverty, riches, worthiness, unworthiness, slander, fame, hunger, thirst, cold, heat - these are the alternations of the world, the workings of fate. Day and night they change place before us, and wisdom cannot spy out their source. Therefore, they should not be enough to destroy your harmony; they should not be allowed to enter the storehouse of the spirit. If you can harmonize and delight in them, master them and never be at a loss for joy; if you can do this day and night without break and make it be spring with everything, mingling with all and creating the moment within your own mind - this is what I call being whole in power.
Zhuangzi
There's a Chinese saying that the fates are winds that blow through our lives from every angle, urging us along the paths of time. Those who are strong-willed may fight the storm and possibly choose their own road, while the weak must go where they are blown. I say I have not been so much pushed by winds as pulled forward by the force of my decisions.
Jean Kwok
Worrying about outcomes over which I have no control is punishing myself before the universe has decided whether I ought to be punished.
Sherry Thomas
You make choices that are good and sound, but the gods have other plans for you.
Lisa See
Grappling with fate is like meeting an expert wrestler: to escape, you have to accept the fall when you are thrown. The only thing that counts is whether you get back up.
Ming-Dao Deng
Sometimes our fate is different from the one we imagined for ourselves.
Jean Kwok
I don't know where I am going, I just know I had to leave. Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.
Ma Jian
But most good writers are Don Quixote at heart, and unreasonableness is often a condition of art.
Ha Jin
Measured in terms of the World Bank poverty standard, the number of poor people in China fell from 652 million to 135 million between 1981 and 2004 - in other words, more than half a billion people were lifted out of poverty. The number of poor people in the developing world as a whole declined by only 400 million over the same period. In other words, but for China, there would have been an increase in the number of poor people in the developing world. No wonder a World Bank report said that "a fall in the number of poor of this magnitude over such a short period is without historical precedent.
Wang Shaoguang
When they passed a maintenance site in the road bed, Einstein stopped next to a worker who was smashing stones and silently observed this boy with torn clothes and dirty face and hands. He asked your father how much the boy earned each day. After asking the boy, he told Einstein: five cents.
Liu Cixin
My mother often said, as long as a person is happy at work, then poverty is nothing to be ashamed of.
Yu Hua
We extend our best wishes to you, inhabitants of another world.After reading the following message, you should have a basic understanding of civilization on Earth. By dint of long toil and creativity, the human race has built a splendid civilization, blossoming with a multitude of diverse cultures. We have also begun to understand the laws governing the natural world and the development of human societies. We cherish all that we have accomplished.But our world is still flawed. Hate exists, as does prejudice and war. Because of conflicts between the forces of production and the relations of production, wealth distribution is extremely uneven, and large portions of humanity live in poverty and misery.Human societies are working hard to resolve the difficulties and problems they face, striving to create a better future for Earth civilization.The country that sent this message is engaged in this effort. We are dedicated to building an ideal society, where the labor and value of every member of the human race are fully respected, where everyone's material and spiritual needs are fully met, so that civilization on Earth may become more perfect.With the best of intentions, we look forward to establishing contact with other civilized societies in the universe. We look forward to working together with you to build a better life in this vast universe.
Liu Cixin
In the midst of darkness, he alone sees the dawn; in the midst of the soundless, he alone hears harmony.
Zhuangzi
I looked into those eyes and I saw nothing. It was like staring straight into the Underworld. Like he aches to return to where he came from.
Marie Lu
The darkness seeps in a little more every day. What have I done? How can I be like this?
Marie Lu
They were the flash of light in a stormy sky, the fleeting darkness before dawn. Never have they existed before, nor shall they ever exist again.
Marie Lu
Desperation brings out the darkness in everyone," the man said with a shrug.
Marie Lu
I never saw her again. But even now, as an old man, I remember her as clearly as if she were standing before me. She was ice personified. There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen.
Marie Lu
There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen.
Marie Lu
She wanted to run her hands over him as he whispered the impassioned corollaries of non-Euclidean geometry.
Sherry Thomas
Her Majesty to the theatre. The performance took place on a stage erected in the courtyard, and Her Majesty closed in one part of her veranda for the use of the guests and Court ladies. During the performance I began to feel very drowsy, and eventually fell fast asleep leaning against one of the pillars. I awoke rather suddenly to find that something had been dropped into my mouth, but on investigation I found it was nothing worse than a piece of candy, which I immediately proceeded to eat. On approaching Her Majesty, she asked me how I had enjoyed the candy, and told me not to sleep, but to have a good time like the rest. I never saw Her Majesty in better humor. She played with us just like a young girl, and one could hardly recognize in her the severe Empress Dowager we knew her to be.
Der Ling
Life is not only consisted of "yes" and "no", but a lot of "yes and's" and "no but's".
Vann Chow
I can taste the good-bye on his lips.
Marie Lu
A true healer is the one who heals himself first so others can benefit from his own healing.
Hong Curley
Remember that we are not gods who can fashion events to our desires. We are mere mortals who must learn not to contend with life but to yield to it.
Bette Bao Lord
She had very much looked forward to a word in private with him. But she forgot, as she usually did, the silence that always came between them in these latter years, whenever they found themselves alone.The queer sensation in her chest, however, was all too familiar, that mix of pleasure and pain, never one without the other.She could have done without those feelings. She would have happily gone her entire life never experiencing the pangs of longing and the futility of regret. He made her human—or as human as she was capable of being. And being human was possibly her least favorite aspect of life.
Sherry Thomas
The contented person finds rest in death, and for the greedy person, death puts an end to his long list of desires.
Liezi
free from desire, you realize the mysterycaught in the desire, you see only the manifestations.
Lao Tzu
Rushing into action, you fail.Trying to grasp things, you lose them.Forcing a project to completion,you ruin what was almost ripe.Therefore the Master takes actionby letting things take their course.He remains as calm at the end as at the beginning.He has nothing,thus has nothing to lose.What he desires is non-desire;what he learns is to unlearn.He simply reminds peopleof who they have always been.He cares about nothing but the Tao.Thus he can care for all things.
Lao Tzu
Failure is an opportunity.If you blame someone else,there is no end to the blame.Therefore the Masterfulfills her own obligationsand corrects her own mistakes.She does what she needs to doand demands nothing of others.
Lao Tzu
Lack of independent thinking is lacking in confidence.
Pearl Zhu
Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend.
Lao Tzu
All they're going to see is a wealthy man who has no idea how to heal their suffering.
Marie Lu
As a jailer, I never got to understand my charges. But when I became a bandit, I spent a lot of time being close to the lowliest of the low: criminals, the enslaved, deserters, men who had nothing to lose. Contrary to what I had expected, I found that they had a hardscrabble beauty and grace. They were not mean in their nature, but made mean by the meanness of their rulers. The poor were willing to endure much, but the emperor had taken everything from them.
Ken Liu
He who is afraid of suffering, is already suffering fear. Out of fear, true creativity is blocked.
Chinese Proverb
Those who don't know how to suffer are the worst off. There are times when the only correct thing we can do is to bear out troubles until a better day.
Ming-Dao Deng
You can never forget the past unless you face up to it.
Fan Wu
Never would I have a more memorable time than the month I spent in the mountains, though I wonder, when I say this, if it appears so only because it is our nature to make a heaven out of places to which we can never return.
Yiyun Li
I had my chance.' He said it, retiring from a lifetime of wanting. 'I had my chance, and sometimes in life, there are no second chances. You look at what you have, not what you miss, and you move forward.
Jamie Ford
Do not undervalue what you are ultimately worth because you are at a momentary disadvantage.
Sherry Thomas
From time to time, I would gaze up at the stars after a night shift and think that they looked like a glowing desert, and I myself was a poor child abandoned in the desert... I thought that life was truly an accident among accidents in the universe. The universe was an empty palace, and humankind the only ant in the entire palace. This kind of thinking infused the second half of my life with a conflicted mentality: Sometimes I thought life was precious, and everything was so important; but other times I thought humans were insignificant, and nothing was worthwhile. Anyway, my life passed day after day accompanied by this strange feeling, and before I knew it, I was old...
Liu Cixin
It is as if the Caru'ee were able to perceive an echo of the past, and unconsciously, as they built upon a palimpsest of books written long ago and long forgotten, chanced to stumble upon an essence of meaning that could not be lost, no matter how much time had passed.
Ken Liu
When a man does not dwell in self, then things will of themselves reveal their forms to him. His movement is like that of water, his stillness like that of a mirror, his responses like those of an echo.
Zhuangzi
The man who has forgotten self may be said to have entered Heaven.
Zhuangzi
Observe things as they are and don't pay attention to other people. There are some people just like mad dogs barking at everything that moves, even barking when the wind stirs among the grass and leaves.
Huang Po
I am not and autobiographical writer--one can't be without a solid and explicable self--and read all autobiographical writers with the same curiosity. What kind of life permits a person the right to become his own subject?
Yiyun Li
Markings in dry clay disappearOnly when the clay is soft again.Scars upon the self disappearOnly when one becomes soft within.
Ming-Dao Deng
Who you are is always right.
Ming-Dao Deng
Any good person who is motivated to attain awareness of the whole truth should follow the Universal Way to calm his mind and harmonize it with all aspects of life.
Lao Tzu