Essayists From China

"This may be easy to know, but it is difficult to put in practice."

"Through letters there is no road too distant to travel, no idea too confusing to be ordered. It comes like rain from clouds; it renews the vital spirit. Inscribed on bronze and marble, it honours every virtue; it sings through flute and strings, and every day is made newer."

"The dark inside of the mind lies hidden; thoughts must be brought like a child from the womb, terrified and screaming."

"We hear the jade bell's laughter and think it laughs at us; for the poet there is terror in the dust."

"We carry the bucket from the well, but it is soon again empty."

"The sleeves of dancers move with the melodies; the voices of singers rise and fall with the music. P'ien the Wheelwright tried to explain it, but couldn't; nor can the artificial flowers of critics describe it."

"A single note from the lute, however beautiful, is not music."

"There are no new ideas, only those which rhyme with certain classics."

"However the sentences branch and spread, they grow out of well-placed phrases."

"Knowing order is like opening a dam in the river. Not knowing is like grabbing the tail to direct the head of the dragon."

"Caught between the unborn and the living, the writer struggles to maintain both depth and surface."

"It is like following a branch to find the trembling leaves, like following a stream to find the spring."

"He learns to recite the classics; he sings in the clear fragrance of the old masters He explores the treasures of the classics where form and content join."

"When cutting an axe handle with an axe, surely the model is at hand."

"There were contradictions in this philosophy, but these did not disturb its leading opponent, the gentle and peculiar Wang Yang-ming. For Wang was a saint as well as a philosopher; the meditative spirit and habits of Mahayana Buddhism had sunk deeply into his soul. It seemed to him that the great error in Chu Hsi was not one of morals, but one of method; the investigation of things, he felt, should begin not with the examination of the external universe, but, as the Hindus had said, with the far profounder and more revealing world of the inner self."

"In 1795 an edict went forth against the further teaching of the Oyomei philosophy; and so docile was the mind of Japan that from that time on Oyomei concealed itself within the phrases of Confucianism, or entered as a modest component into that military Zen which, by a typical paradox of history, transformed the pacific faith of Buddha into the inspiration of patriotic warriors."

"“I had for many years been a devout believer in Shushi says Nakaye Toju (1608-48), “when, by the mercy of Heaven, the collected works of Oyomei were brought for the first time to Japan. Had it not been for the aid of their teaching, my life would have been empty and barren.”"

"以為舊詩適合於表達某種情感,二十余年來,我恰有此種情感,故發而為詩;詩有時自己形成,不用我做."

""A student asked, “What should I do about being confused by different theories when I read?” Zhu Xi answered, “Start with an open mind, then read one theory. Read one view before reading another. After you have read them again and again, what is right and wrong, useful and useless, will become apparent of itself. The process can be compared to trying to discover whether a person is good or bad. You observe him wherever he goes, notice what he says or does, and then know if he is good or bad.” He also said, “You simply must have an open mind,” and “Wash away your old opinions to let new ideas in.” 12:211"

""Zhengchun said, “I’d like to survey a great many books.” “Don’t do that,” Zhu Xi said. “Read one book thoroughly, then read another one. If you confusedly try to advance on several fronts, you will end up with difficulties. It’s like archery. If you are strong enough for a five-pint bow, use a four-pint one. You will be able to draw it all the way and still have strength left over. Students today do not measure their own strength when reading books. I worry that we cannot manage what we already have set ourselves.” 20:464"

""A student asked, “How can a person develop his sincerity and reverence and get rid of his desires?” Zhu Xi responded, “These are the end-points. Sincerity requires getting rid of all sorts of falseness. Reverence requires getting rid of all sorts of laziness. Desires should be blocked.” 13:246"

"Since my childhood I have enjoyed reading Martial Arts fiction. I write it myself first and foremost for my own pleasure, and then for the pleasure of my readers (there is also, of course, the financial reward...). I am just a storyteller, like the professional storytellers of the Song dynasty. I believe Martial Arts fiction is like Peking Opera, or ballad-singing, or dancing, or music—its main function is to give pleasure."

"Writings such as commentaries and annotations exist to assist people in becoming sages, but in fact they close the doors to sagehood."

"There is nothing difficult about becoming a sage, and nothing false about transcending the world of appearances."

"It is only through contact and comparison that the relative value or worthlessness of the various cultural elements can be clearly and critically seen and understood. What is sacred among one people may be ridiculous in another; and what is despised or rejected by one cultural group, may in a different environment become the cornerstone for a great edifice of strange grandeur and beauty."

"The original dispute was one of poetic diction... From an interest in the minor problem of poetic diction I was led to see that the problem was really one of a suitable medium for all branches of Chinese literature. The question now became: In what language shall the New China produce its future literature? My answer was: The classical language, so long dead, can never be the medium of a living literature of a living nation; the future literature of China must be written in the living language of the people. "No dead language can produce a living literature." And the living language I proposed as the only possible medium of the future literature of China, was the pei-hau, the vulgar tongue of the vast majority of the population, the language which, in the last 500 years, had produced the numerous novels read and loved by the people, though despised by the men of letters. I wanted this much despised vulgar tongue of the people and the novels to be elevated to the position of the national language of China, to the position enjoyed by all the modern national languages in Europe."

"India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border."

"Clouds that are grey Can no longer be washed clean. We open the umbrella And simply paint the sky black."

"A bird in the gusty wind Deftly changes directionA youth tries to pick up A pennyThe grapevine in fantasy Stretches its tentaclesThe Wave in retreat Arches its back."

"The sky is grey The road is grey The building is grey The rain is grey Through this stretch of dead ash Walked two children One in bright red One in light green."

"Even with these dark eyes, a gift of the dark night I go to seek the shining light."

"It is probably safe to say that Gu Cheng was the most radical poet in all of China's 2,500 years of written poetry."

"A foreign lady friend of mine once wrote and asked me whether it is true that we Chinese believe, like the Mohamedans, that a woman has no soul. I wrote back and told her that we Chinese do not hold that a woman has no soul, but that we hold that a woman,—a true Chinese woman has no self."

"The serene and blessed mood which enables us to see into the life of things: that is imaginative reason, that is the Spirit of the Chinese People."

"In fact, the chief end of a woman in China is not to live for herself, or for society; not to be a reformer or to be president of the woman's natural feet Society; not to live even as a saint or to do good to the world; the chief end of a woman in China is to live as a good daughter a good wife and a good mother."

"He was a crank but not a bore, for his was a first-class mind and he had, above all, insight and depth, as no man in my generation had. No man in China wrote English the way he did, because of his challenging ideas and because of his masterly style, a style reminiscent of Matthew Arnold's poised and orderly evolution of ideas and repetition of certain phrases, plus the dramatic bombast of Thomas Carlyle and the witticisms of Heine."

"[S]poken or colloquial Chinese is [...] in fact the language of a child. Now as a proof of this, we all know how easily European children learn colloquial or spoken Chinese, while learned philogues and sinologues insist in saying that Chinese is so difficult. Chinese, colloquial Chinese, I say again is the language of a child. My first advice therefore to my foreign friends who want to learn Chinese is "Be ye like little children, you will then not only enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but you will also be able to learn Chinese.""

"[T]he honour of a woman,— a true woman in China, is not only to love and be true to her husband, but to live absolutely, selflessly for him, In fact, this Religion of Selflessness is the religion of the woman, especially, the gentlewoman or lady in China, as the Religion of Loyalty which I have tried elsewhere to explain, is the religion of the man, — the gentleman in China."

"But people will say to me, "why ask selflessness and sacrifice only from the woman? What about the man?" To this, I answer, does not the man, the husband, who toils and moils to support his family, and especially if he is a gentleman, who has to do his duty not only to his family, but to his King and country, and, in doing that has, some time even to give his life: does he not also make sacrifice?"

"官方一会说转基因食品无害，一会说要严禁在世博园区里出现转基因的食品以免外国人误食，这是一种自己对自己的歧视么？"

"評論《阿凡達》說，「野蠻強拆對於其他國家的觀眾來說，的確是一件超乎他們想像力的事情，也就是外星球和中國才可能發生。」"

"我花了很长时间去想，那些界定别人低俗的人，他们到底高雅在哪里，比如说有人花一百块嫖娼是低俗，有人用一百万去玩艺人就是高雅，有人看黄色图片是低俗，有人看红头文件是高雅，有人买个仿真枪是低俗，有人真枪一暴两个头是高雅，有人玩魔兽就是低俗，有人玩模特就是高雅..."

"In dealing with those who share his bed, the enlightened ruler may enjoy their beauty but should not listen to their special pleas..."

"To govern the state by law is to praise the right and blame the wrong."

"The way of the ruler is to make certain that, if what a minister says beforehand does not tally with what he says later, or what he says later does not tally with what he has said previously, then although he may have fulfilled his task with distinction, he is condemned to certain punishment. This is what it means to hold your subordinates responsible."

"Be immeasurably great, be unfathomably deep; make certain that names and results tally, examine laws and customs, punish those who act willfully, and the state will be without traitors."

"Take hold of the handles of government carefully and grip them tightly. Destroy all hope, smash all intention of wresting them from you; allow no man to covet them."

"From your place of darkness observe the defects of others. See but do not appear to see; listen but do not seem to listen; know but do not let it be known that you know. When you perceive the trend of a man's words, do not change them, do not correct them, but examine them and compare them with the results."

"The way is the beginning of all beings and the measure of right and wrong."

"Laws are the means of prohibiting error and ruling out selfish motives; strict penalties are the means of enforcing orders and disciplining inferiors. Authority should never reside in two places; the power of decree should never be open to joint use. If authority and power are shared with others, then all manner of abuse will become rife. If law does not command respect, then all the ruler’s actions will be endangered. If penalties are not enforced, then evil will never be surmounted."