Quotes by Chinese Authors - Page 17

Before the sparrow arrived, you had almost stopped thinking about flight. Then, last winter, it soared through the sky and landed in front of you, or more precisely on the windowsill of the covered balcony adjoining your bedroom. You knew the grimy window panes were caked with dead ants and dust, and smelt as sour as the curtains. But the sparrow wasn’t put off. It jumped inside the covered balcony and ruffled its feathers, releasing a sweet smell of tree bark into the air. Then it flew into your bedroom, landed on your chest and stayed there like a cold egg.
Ma Jian
A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return.
Sun Tzu
Highly evolved people have their own conscience as pure law.
Lao Tzu
The loneliness comes to me in certain hours everyday, like a visitor. Like a friend you never expected, a friend you never really want to be with, but he always visit you and love you somehow,
Xiaolu Guo
Red's world, you see, is a closed circle. Not that it matters. I know that I'm a closed circle, too, and it's all I can do to find some starting point from myself, while at the same time trying to find my own terminus. There's no way I'm ever going to find my beginning or end in somebody else's circle. Two people together never add up to anything more than one person added to another. That we continue to add ourselves up in this way is the reason human beings will always be lonely.
Xiaolu Guo
Talking to strangers sounded like talking to no one, which Henry had some firsthand experience in- in real life. It was lonely. Almost as lonely as Lake View Cemetery, where he'd buried Ethel.
Jamie Ford
Writing is a kind of repository and can help create a space for the accommodation of new thoughts and feelings. If you don't write these stories down, your heart will be filled up and broken by them.
Xinran
At this moment, in this place, the shifting action potential in my neurons cascade into certain arrangements, patterns, thoughts; they flow down my spine, branch into my arms, my fingers, until muscles twitch and thought is translated into motion; mechanical levers are pressed; electrons are rearranged; marks are made on paper.At another time, in another place, light strikes the marks, reflects into a pair of high-precision optical instruments sculpted by nature after billions of years of random mutations; upside-down images are formed against two screens made up of millions of light-sensitive cells, which translate light into electrical pulses that go up the optic nerves, cross the chiasm, down the optic tracts, and into the visual cortex, where the pulses are reassembled into letters, punctuation marks, words, sentences, vehicles, tenors, thoughts.The entire system seems fragile, preposterous, science fictional.
Ken Liu
Faxian and Xuanzang might have been the first Chinese to travel to India, but sometimes it felt like I was the first.
Hong Mei
Travel is such a wonderful experience! Especially when you forget you are traveling. Then you will enjoy whatever you see and do. Those who look into themselves when they travel will not think about what they see. In fact, there is no distinction between the viewer and the seen. You experience everything with the totality of yourself, so that every blade of grass, every mountain, every lake is alive and is a part of you. When there is no division between you and what is other, this is the ultimate experience of traveling.
Liezi
I left Beijing because I wanted to be alone and to forge my own path, but I know now that no path is solitary, we all tread across other people's beginnings and ends.
Ma Jian
A good traveler is one who who does not know where he is going to , and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.
Lin Yutang
After Supper the Master dismissed all except Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and Sha the Monk. He took them out with him and said, "Look at that wonderful moolight. It makes me long for the time when I can return home.
Wu Cheng'en
No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
Lin Yutang
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao Tzu
Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.
Ma Jian
With those who are kindthe sage is kindWith those who are not kindthe sage is also kindbecause the way of Tao is kindness
Lao Tzu
As the four girls were taking her father's life, she had tried to rush onto the stage. But two old university janitors held her down and whispered into her ear that she would lose her own life if she went.
Liu Cixin
Being extra nice to someone can be a form of manipulation--kindness is an exercise of power in its own right.
Wang Anyi
The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.The more he gives to others,the more he has for his own.
Lao Tzu
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao Tzu
Simplicity, patience, compassion.These three are your greatest treasures.Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.Patient with both friends and enemies,you accord with the way things are.Compassionate toward yourself,you reconcile all beings in the world."…"There is no greater misfortunethan underestimating your enemy.Underestimating your enemymeans thinking that he is evil.Thus you destroy your three treasuresand become an enemy yourself.When two great forces oppose each other,the victory will goto the one that knows how to yield.
Lao Tzu
Attain complete emptiness,Hold fast to stillness.Understanding the ordinary: Mind opens.Mind opening leads to compassion,Compassion to nobility,Nobility to heavenliness,Heavenliness to TAO. TAO endures. Your body dies.There is no danger.
Lao Tzu
Revere the unity of all-that-iscarry out your daily activities with compassion;if you do not limit your compassion,you yourself will not be limited.
Lao Tzu
Heaven’s Tao is impartial,yet those who follow its compassionate waywill always be nourished
Lao Tzu
So let us recognise our shame and guilt; let us ache with self-reflection; let us eradicate the repetition of suffering and resist anger; let us learn to concretely tend to the suffering of an individual, of our common citizens, with equality; let us learn to live life with honour and dignity and a wealth of humanity.
Xiaobo Liu
If a person seems wicked, do not cast him away. Awaken him with your words, elevate him with your deeds, repay his injury with your kindness. Do not cast him away; cast away his wickedness.
Lao Tzu
When you know that illusion and transformation are no different from birth and death, then you may learn magic.
Liezi
When men do not forget what can be forgotten but forget what cannot be forgotten - that may be called true forgetting.
Zhuangzi
He doesn't know who I am.
Marie Lu
It may not seem like much - a few kisses in the dark - but it was enough to burn a hole like an ulcer in my heart.
Jean Kwok
And of all the rooms in my childhood,God was the largestand most empty.
Li-Young Lee
Time's arrow is the loss of fidelity in compression. A sketch, not a photograph. A memory is a re-creation, precious because it is both more and less than the original.
Ken Liu
Memory is sweet.Even when it's painful, memory is sweet.
Li-Young Lee
Like a great ship, this season has run aground. Dawn and dusk alternate at an old man's pace. I live alone in an area known as the 'Waterside', writing a book akin to the Revelations of St. John.
Ge Fei
Life is death. Death is Life. teach the deserving. Teach with Passion. Learn always. Assume Nothing.
Shaolin Monks
At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden,  until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.
Sun Tzu
Ground on which we can only be saved from destruction by fighting without delay, is desperate ground.
Sun Tzu
When an invading force crosses a river in its onward march, do not advance to meet it in mid-stream.  It will be best to let half the army get across, and then deliver your attack.
Sun Tzu
Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.
Sun Tzu
Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.
Sun Tzu
If his forces are united, separate them.
Sun Tzu
who does not know the evils of war cannot appreciate its benefits
Sun Tzu
do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat
Sun Tzu
Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory;  show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat.
Sun Tzu
The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
Sun Tzu
These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.
Sun Tzu
So long as victory can be attained,  stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness.
Sun Tzu
When your army has crossed the border, you should burn your boats and bridges, in order to make it clear to everybody that you have no hankering after home.
Sun Tzu
If there is disturbance in the camp, the general's authority is weak. 
Sun Tzu
the worst calamities that befall an army arise from hesitation
Sun Tzu
You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.
Sun Tzu
When the outlook is bright, bring it before their eyes; but tell them nothing when the situation is gloomy.
Sun Tzu
Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy's purpose.
Sun Tzu
if you fight with all your might,  there is a chance of life; where as death is certain if you cling to your corner
Sun Tzu
You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked.
Sun Tzu
We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors.
Sun Tzu
Whether in an advantageous position or a disadvantageous one, the opposite state should be always present to your mind.
Sun Tzu
There are not more than five primary colors  (blue, yellow,  red, white, and black), yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen.
Sun Tzu
When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is INSUBORDINATION.
Sun Tzu