Chinese Quotes

Its important to be comfortable with uncertainty.

~ Xiaolu Guo

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.

~ John F. Kennedy

If we don't change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.

~ Jodi Picoult

He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.

~ Confucius

Foreknowledge cannot be gotten from ghosts and spirits, cannot be had by analogy, cannot be found out by calculation. It must be obtained from people, people who know the conditions of the enemy.

~ Sun Tzu

I drift like a cloud,Across these venerable eastern lands,A journey of unfathomable distances,An endless scroll of experiences...Lady Zhejiang here we must part,For the next province awaits my embrace.Sad wanderer, once you conquer the East,Where do you go?

~ Tom Carter

Here's a resume of crucial knowledge you should have in today's world but universities are not providing: Financial - Not just on management, but also on how to profit, how to manage and control flows of income; Linguistic - In today's world, speaking only a language is prove of lack of education. Knowing two languages is a basic necessity, and knowing three languages is essential, while knowing four is merely the ideal situation. Which four languages? Chinese, English, Spanish, and another of your choice, just for fun; Intellectual - It's not about what you know; it’s all about how you think about what you know. Therefore, it's ridiculous to think that there’s only one answer and one way to examine our life. Most students are extremely dumb because they lack the ability to educate themselves, despite their certificates or where they’ve studied. They never read with an intention in mind. And as they graduate, they become completely futile as individuals. This situation is the same all over the world. Millions are graduating every year, without any significant knowledge to live with. Their books are often outdated once they graduate and they're unable to learn by themselves and develop the necessary skills to adjust to the economic society in which we live. Maybe they can keep a job for 3 or 5 years of their life, but then are surprised to lose it and never finding a suitable job again. The world is changing very fast and most people can’t or are unwilling to recognize this fact.

~ Robin Sacredfire

Merrick and I had both had tattoos, my magpie and his elephant and castle, imposed on us as…it’s a long story. A reward, or apology, or both, from the Dragon Head, or grand master, of one of the larger criminal organisations in China after we accidentally saved his son’s life.”“Accidentally?”“It’s a VERY long story.

~ K.j. Charles

We set our own limits on love. Some of us bind our hearts like Chinese women bind their feet. The binding is painful at first but eventually you get used to it and the pain goes away. The saddest part of all is that by binding yourself to the choices you make, you forget that there was ever another way to live.

~ Kate Mcgahan

An army of the people is invincible!

~ Mao Zedong

The way to stifle China’s growth is to inhibit the flow of their connectivity. In order to slow down Chinese expansion, we need to cripple their cyber-kinetic-political connectivity. Indirect polarization, in all forms, must be at the forefront of the agenda when conducting influence operations on all things China.

~ James Scott

The snapshots in CHINA: Portrait of a People are not meant to be works of art. I was too preoccupied with participating, with reveling in the moment, to worry about their perfection. Their purpose, then, is to form a candid portrait of China exactly as China presented itself to me.

~ Tom Carter

Shelves full of books are all around me. Opening the different volumes I take a look, and find the pages covered with writings in unknown scripts — tadpole traces, bird feet markings, twisted branches. And in my dream I am able to read them all, to make sense of everything despite its difficulty.

~ Jonathan D. Spence

Yong is the outer manifestation of something. Ti is the underlying essence. Technology is a yong associated with a particular ti that is ... Western, and completely alien to us [the Chinese]. For centuries, since the time of the Opium Wars, we have struggled to absorb the yong of technology without importing the Western ti. But it has been impossible. Just as our ancestors could not open our ports to the West without accepting the poison of opium, we could not open our lives to Western technology without taking in the Western ideas, which have been as a plague on our society. The result has been centuries of chaos.

~ Neal Stephenson

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

But it's not really Chinese, is it?'Logan was thoughtful for a moment. I don't know. I guess you'd say it's really not if you look back thousands of years. But I don't think that way. Lots of things start out not Chinese and end up that way.

~ Ken Liu

He advised that I could invest in stocks to make money. Given that I have a negative balance, that was where the conversation stopped.

~ Vann Chow

And now that I have been scammed once, I felt like it could not happen to me again.

~ Vann Chow

We never expressed this to each other in Chinese, because it wasn’t something said in Chinese culture; the emotions were too strong, the words too coarse, and besides, it was assumed that parents and children loved each other.

~ Atom Yang

No matter what else people may steal from you, they will never be able to take away your knowledge.

~ Adeline Yen Mah

I knew that I was the least-loved child because I was a girl and because my mother had died giving birth to me.

~ Adeline Yen Mah

In the early 1970s, racial and gender discrimination was still prevalent. The easy camaraderie prevailing in the operating room evaporated at the completion of surgical procedures. There was an unspoken pecking order of seating arrangements at lunch among my fellow physicians. At the top were the white male 'primary producers' in prestigious surgical specialties. They were followed by the internists. Next came the general practitioners. Last on the list were the hospital-based physicians: the radiologists, pathologists and anaesthesiologists - especially non-white, female ones like me. Apart from colour, we were shunned because we did not bring in patients ourselves but, like vultures, lived off the patients generated by other doctors. We were also resented because being hospital-based and not having to rent office space or hire nursing staff, we had low overheads. Since a physician's number of admissions to the hospital and referral pattern determined the degree of attention and regard accorded by colleagues, it was safe for our peers to ignore us and target those in position to send over income-producing referrals. This attitude was mirrored from the board of directors all the way down to the orderlies.

~ Adeline Yen Mah

Civilize The Mind, But Make Savage The Body.

~ Ancient Chinese Proverb

No wonder prostitution is so rampant in China, I mused as I watched the four girls watch us: why stand on your feet all day for slave wages when you can get rich on your back?

~ Tom Carter

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable-even legally actionable-to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, Hey fatty-lose some weight. By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of health and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self image.

~ Amy Chua

His wife had also studied art in her hometown, and she could paint, but depending on such work for her livelihood was just not possible. As far as appearances went, she was definitely a real beauty. When she was young, she looked a little like Gong Li, but now that she was middle-aged, she had put on weight and gradually taken on more of a bell-shaped look, resembling Li Siqin. But no matter what, a wife always looks better than her balding, broadbellied husband.

~ Chew Kok Chang

Only those who have tasted the bitterest of the bitter can become people who stand out among others. -Guanchang Xianxing Ji

~ Matthew Polly

Look at the truth from how it stands, not where it comes from. The truth is still the truth no matter whether it is spoken by an Indian, an American, a Chinese, an European, an African or an Australian!

~ Israelmore Ayivor

Faxian and Xuanzang might have been the first Chinese to travel to India, but sometimes it felt like I was the first.

~ Hong Mei

And so we went. And so it went. And, slowly, I began to learn: speaking in the same language does not equal communication, especially when there is a cultural divide.

~ Gerry Abbey

Is China a drug? Like any drug, it depends entirely on the user’s own state of mind. If we’re making metaphors, for old China hands I’d imagine their time here draws parallels with the soaring euphoria and bleak depths of smoking opium, while China for the uninitiated is probably a bit like bath salts: the constantly convulsing nervous system, the paranoia, the god-complex, the rage. I’d liken my own China experience to a decade-long acid trip. It began with liberating my mind from the restraints of Western society. Then I departed on an odyssey that took me tens of thousands of miles across China, experiencing various metaphysical and spiritual states as my journey progressed, punctuated by periods of intense creativity due to my heightened sensory perceptions. To a background score of warped erhu and guzheng, and the looped calls of sidewalk vendors echoing into the void, the kaleidoscopic chaos of this culture surged around me like the Yangtze river – in outer space. Now I’m one with China’s cosmic consciousness. I want to reeducate the communists with love. Or maybe I’m not even here. Maybe I really did perish during my kora around Mount Kailash and none of this ever happened...

~ Tom Carter

The sacrifices of time and money that Chinese friends will make for one another often go far beyond what is expected or accepted in Western society.

~ Larry Herzberg

And so the result of several years of Everybody Shareskyism, other than slaughtering people, is for everybody to stand around and stare blankly at each other.

~ Lao She

Perhaps the god who had made the Cat People intended them as a joke. They had schools, but no education; politicians but no government; people, but no personal integrity; faces, but no concept of face. One had to admit that their god had gone a little too far with his little joke.

~ Lao She

There is reinforcement in such familiar back-formations as Chinee from Chinese, Portugee from Portuguese.

~ H.l. Mencken

I'm online, therefore I am.

~ Stewart Lee Beck

Because different cultures see a particular animal as representing a certain human virtue or vice, the use of animal imagery also allows for more colorful commentary on the human condition.

~ Larry Herzberg

Approaching the Start of Civil ExamsPerhaps I was once a young Chinese scholarapproaching the start of civil exams,my mind grown weary and sad from seclusionwith books on syntax and poetic style.All that I knew were the mist-covered mountainsand sweet white blossoms of mountain applesthat grew in the valleys of my province.But I had been gone over six yearsbusy with studies in the Heavenly Cityempty and thin despite my work.I showed my verses to an older poetwho told me a truth I longed to believe:all knowledge is futile and barrenwhich does not open the love of your friends.

~ Jim Chapson

To most Americans, a dog is a potential mate. To some Chinese, a dog is potential meat.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

This communal parenting brought me out of the privacy of our foreign enclave and into the public life of the community. Here, parenting was everyone’s responsibility; all adults were aunties and uncles.

~ Aminta Arrington