Best 776 quotes in «chinese quotes» category

QUESTION AND ANSWER ON THE MOUNTAIN You ask for what reason I stay on the green mountain, I smile, but do not answer, my heart is at leisure. Peach blossom is carried far off by flowing water, Apart, I have heaven and earth in the human world.

QUIET NIGHT THOUGHT Before my bed the moonlight glitters, Like frost upon the ground. I look up to the mountain moon, Look down and think of home.

READING LAOZI Those who speak do not know, those who know are silent, I heard this saying from the old gentleman. If the old gentleman was one who knew the way, Why did he feel able to write five thousand words?

REGRET FOR PEONY FLOWERS I'm saddened by the peonies before the steps, so red, As evening came I found that only two remained. Once morning's winds have blown, they surely won't survive, At night I gaze by lamplight, to cherish the fading red.

REMEMBERING SOUTH OF THE RIVER South of the river is good, Long ago, I knew the landscape well. At sunrise, the river's flowers are red like fire, In spring, the river's water's green as lilies. How could I not remember south of the river?

RETURNING LATE ON THE ROAD FROM PINGQUAN ON WINTER’S DAY The mountain road is hard to travel, the sun now slanting down, In a misty village, a crow lands on a frosted tree. I'll not arrive before night falls, but that should not concern me, Once I've drunk three warm cups, I'll feel as if at home.

SEEING OFF A FRIEND Green hills above the northern wall, White water winding east of the city. On this spot our single act of parting, The lonely tumbleweed journeys ten thousand li. Drifting clouds echo the traveller's thoughts, The setting sun reflects my old friend's feelings. You wave your hand and set off from this place, Your horse whinnies as it leaves.

SEEING OFF MENF HAORAN FOR GUANLING AT YELLOW CRANE TOWER My old friend's said goodbye to the west, here at Yellow Crane Tower, In the third month's cloud of willow blossoms, he's going down to Yangzhou. The lonely sail is a distant shadow, on the edge of a blue emptiness, All I see is the Yangtze River flow to the far horizon.

SENT TO DU FU BELOW SHAQUI CITY What is it that I've come to now? High before me: Shaqiu city. Beside the city, ancient trees; The sunset joins the autumn sounds. The Lu wine cannot make me drunk, Qi's songs cannot restore my feelings. My thoughts of you are like the Wen's waters, Mightily sent on their southern journey.

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.

SITTING ALONE ON JINGTING SHAN HILL A flock of birds is flying high in the distance, A lonely cloud drifts idly on its own. We gaze at each other, neither growing tired, There is only Jingting Shan.

SLEEPING ON A NIGHT OF AUTUMN RAIN It's cold this night in autumn's third month, Peacefully within, a lone old man. He lies down late, the lamp already gone out, And beautifully sleeps amid the sound of rain. The ash inside the vessel still warm from the fire, Its fragrance increases the warmth of quilt and covers. When dawn comes, clear and cold, he does not rise, The red frosted leaves cover the steps.

SONG OF THE PALACE Her handkerchief all soaked in tears, she cannot dream, In deepest night before the palace voices sing. Her rosy cheeks aren't old, but first love has been cut, Leaning, wreathed in smoke, she sits until the dawn.

SONG OF SUNSET ON THE RIVER A strip of water's spread in the setting sun, Half the river's emerald, half is red. I love the third night of the ninth month, The dew is like pearl; the moon like a bow.

SPRING DAWN Spring dawn arrives unnoticed in my slumber, Till I hear birds twittering everywhere. It springs to mind a storm raged through overnight, Off it blew how many flowers I wonder?

SPRING SLEEP The pillow's low, the quilt is warm, the body smooth and peaceful, Sun shines on the door of the room, the curtain not yet open. Still the youthful taste of spring remains in the air, Often it will come to you even in your sleep.

STAYING THE NIGHT AT A MOUNTAIN TEMPLE The high tower is a hundred feet tall, From here one's hand could pluck the stars. I do not dare to speak in a loud voice, I fear to disturb the people in heaven.

Suicide. This is the exact opposite of last time, for this time I'm experiencing a kind of pleasure in life, in being alive, a pleasure in living that I've never experienced before, and I'm hopeful and confident that I can become someone with dignity. I know now why I couldn't change certain characteristics and certain things about myself, but it's not a problem anymore. Certain pathways I failed to open in the past have now opened. My whole self is radiating light. I see with clarity. I understand the cause and effect of the last year. What I had imagined I've now attained. It's as if I can see my life right in front of my eyes, and all I have to do is reach out and draw it in... Now I don't feel the acute pain I felt before; I feel enlightened, at peace. It's as if I've instantly found the secret of "Suffering", how to bear it and how to endure it... Yes, this time I've decided to kill myself not because I can't live with suffering and not because I don't enjoy being alive. I love life passionately, and my wish to die is a wish to live... Yes, I've chosen suicide. The endpoint of this process of "Forgiveness". Not to punish anyone or to protest a wrong. I've chosen suicide with a clarity I've never possessed before, with a rational resolve and sense of calm, in order to pursue the ultimate meaning of my life, act on my belief about the beauty between two people... I take complete responsibility for my life, and even if my physical body disappears upon death, I don't believe my spirit will disappear. As long as I have loved people fully, then I can be content fading into "Nothingness". If I'm using death to express my passion for life, then I still don't love her enough, don't love life enough. and I will reincarnate in a different form to love her and to be part of her life... So the death of my flesh really doesn't mean anything. Doesn't solve anything. Is this a tragedy? Will there be tragedy?

THE BLOOM IS NOT A BLOOM The bloom is not a bloom, The mist not mist. At midnight she comes, And goes again at dawn. She comes like a spring dream - how long will she stay? She goes like morning cloud, without a trace.

The Chinese did not admire a bent back; goddesses and warriors stood straight. Still there must have been a marvelous freeing of beauty when a worker laid down her burden and stretched and arched.

The Chinese considered the moon to be yin, feminine and full of negative energy, as opposed to the sun that was yang and exemplified masculinity. I liked the moon, with its soft silver beams. It was at once elusive and filled with trickery, so that lost objects that had rolled into the crevices of a room were rarely found, and books read in its light seemed to contain all sorts of fanciful stories that were never there the next morning.

The cunning villains used our innocence, naivety and honesty; they incited and steered our virtue, purity and fervent temperaments. When we realized the actual absurdity of the situation and began to demand our democratic rights, we were subjected to unprecedented persecution and suppression. Our youth, passion, learning, idealism and joy were all sacrificed to the terrible rule of this wicked tyranny. How can this not be blood?

The Han language resembles no other on this earth. While I had no trouble learning to speak Mongol, and to write with its alphabet, I never learned more than a rudimentary comprehension of Han. The Mongol speech is gruff and harsh, like its speakers, but it at least employs sounds not too different from those heard in our Western languages. The Han, by contrast, is a speech of staccato syllables, and they are sung rather than spoken. Evidently the Han throat is incapable of forming more than a very few of the sounds that other people make. The sound of r, for one, is quite beyond them. My name in their speech was always Mah-ko. And, having so very few noises to work with, the Han must sound them on different tones—high, mid, low, rising, falling—to make a sufficient variety for compiling a vocabulary. It is like this: suppose our Ambrosian plainsong Gloria in excelsis had that meaning of “glory in the highest” only when sung to its traditional up and down neumes, and, if the syllables were sung in different ups and downs, were to change its meaning utterly—to “darkness in the lowest” or “dishonor to the basest” or even “fish for the frying.

The first Chinese star, they call her, and it's the qualifications that are crucial. First. Chinese. A star may play only him- or herself, but she is supposed to play a race. How can she be herself and represent millions, both at once? And who does she represent them to? To themselves or others? "Who does she thinks she is?" an outraged Nationalist critic has demanded. She wishes she could say. Not a star, then. A star gives off its own light. Another celestial body, a moon, reflecting others' light.

The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese--and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.

[...] The monks sped up the process up for us laowai who have less time, less patience for basics, and a greater need for external markers of our accomplishments.

Then he asked my age, and I asked his. That's the tradition in China. If we know each other's ages we can understand each other's past. We chinese have been collective for so long, personal histories are not worth mentioning. Therefore as soon as Xiaolin and I knew how old the other was, we knew exactly what big shit happened in our lives. The introduction of the One Child Policy shortly before our births, for instance, and the fact that, in 1985, two pandas were sent to the USA as a national gift and we had to sing a tearful panda song at school. 1989 was the Tiananment Square student demonstration.

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.

The sensation of the ocean bearing my weight was the most carefree lightness I’d ever experienced. When we were halfway across the strait, the sound of an engine approached from a distance—it was probably the police coast guard. We quickly ducked under the surface of the water, exposing only the tips of our trunks so we could breathe.

T'ao Tsung-yi, a writer during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), wrote that "children's meat was the best food of all in taste" followed by women and then men.

The old tales of China tell us that all things may grow and change. A stone may become a plant. A plant may become an animal. An animal may become a human. A human may become a god. Just so, a snake may become a woman. And we are told of one who did.

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.

They said her duck recipe and the Chinese music were so dramatic everything else sounded anemic.

THOUGHTS ON A STILL NIGHT Before my bed, the moon is shining bright, I think that it is frost upon the ground. I raise my head and look at the bright moon, I lower my head and think of home.

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

VIEWING HEAVEN’S GATE MOUNTAINS The River Chu cuts through the middle of heaven's gate, The green water flowing east reaches here then swirls. On either bank the blue hills face towards each other, The flatness of a lonely sail comes from by of the sun.

VISITING THE TAOIST PRIEST DAI TIANSHAN, BUT NOT FINDING HIM A dog's bark amid the water's sound, Peach blossom that's made thicker by the rain. Deep in the trees, I sometimes see a deer, And at the stream I hear no noonday bell. Wild bamboo divides the green mist, A flying spring hangs from the jasper peak. No-one knows the place to which he's gone, Sadly, I lean on two or three pines.

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.

What benefit have the Hindus derived from their contact with Christian nations? The idea generally prevalent in this country about the morality and truthfulness of the Hindus evidently has been very low. Such seeds of enmity and hatred have been sown by the missionaries that it would be an almost Herculean task to establish better relations between India and America... If we examine Greek, Chinese, Persian, or Arabian writings on the Hindus, before foreigners invaded India, we find an impartial description of their national character. Megasthenes, the famous Greek ambassador, praises them for their love of truth and justice, for the absence of slavery, and for the chastity of their women. Arrian, in the second century, Hiouen-thsang, the famous Buddhist pilgrim in the seventh century, Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, have written in highest terms of praise of Hindu morality. The literature and philosophy of Ancient India have excited the admiration of all scholars, except Christian missionaries.

When we talked about "A Modest Proposal" I felt like I was running circles around everybody. I understood that shit better than the professor 'cause he was just a fan. I wasn't an Irishman, but I knew how it felt to have someone standing over you, controlling your life and wanting to call it something else. From the people at the Christian Fellowship to First Academy to my parents to Confucius to thousands of years of ass-backwards Chinese thinking, I knew how it felt. Everything my parents did to me and their parents did to them was justified under the banner of Tradition, Family, and Culture. And when it wasn't them it was someone impressing Christianity onto me and when it wasn't Christianity it was whiteness.

This book is important due to the historical insights of Der Ling rather than her literary skill. Her life and works underscore a shrewd ability to adapt and make the most out of her various experiences.

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.

You want to know my name? --a hill, a tree. An empty drifting boat.

WRITTEN ON THE WALL OF WEST FOREST TEMPLE From the side, a whole range; from the end, a single peak: Far, near, high, low, no two parts alike. Why can’t I tell the true shape of Lushan? Because I myself am in the mountain.

90% of toys are made in china, which technically makes the chinese elves

A boycott would send a clear message to Yahoo shareholders and other companies which cheerfully sacrifice human rights in return for a cut of the Chinese market.

Workers were required to stay six months, and even then permission to quit was not always granted. The factory held the first two months of every worker's pay; leaving without approval meant losing that money and starting over somewhere else. That was a fact of factory life you couldn't know from the outside: Getting into a factory was easy. The hard part was getting out.

According to my mother, there pretty much wasn't anything I wouldn't eat as a child.... I was even inclined to dig into stuff about which she expressed open disgust... cheap Chinese food with pepper so hot it made your gums feel like a medieval dentist had been at them.

A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.

Actually, the few good Chinese movies that foreign countries choose to import are Zhang Yimou's, and mine, a few directors, but how many movies can we make in a year? We can only make a few, while they turn them out continuously.