Best 421 quotes in «china quotes» category

If you put a smile on someones face, it was a good day.

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.

I have come to believe that coming true is not the only purpose of a dream; it's most important purpose is to get us in touch with where dreams come from, where passion comes from, where happiness comes from. Even a shattered dream can do that for you.

I have taken a different approach. One that I hope is more easily accessible to the reader’s emotional imagination, though less analytically systematic. I have summoned back into life again—through my own translations from a selection of popular Chinese novel sand poems—some of the imagined worlds in which Chinese have passed their daily reality during the last two hundred years. I have tried to convey something of what it felt like to be a Chinese, living in Chinese society, in different settings of status, age, and gender, and how this has changed over time. For reasons of method, I have looked at a small number of organically coherent emotional spaces, contained in individual works or parts of works, and considered them in detail. ... It would be pretending to more wisdom than I have to claim that the selection I have made is the result of a rigorous intellectual winnowing process from a harvest of widespread reading in late-imperial and modern Chinese literature. Honesty compels the admission that it is more the outcome of chance, serendipity, and whatever happened to catch my imagination, for reasons that I am probably in no position to do more than guess at. ... In so far as there has been a guiding principle behind my choices it has been the desire to show as much as the constraints of space allow of the contrasts among those in different social position, different periods, and different ideologies.

I hope… that we are making China more interesting and less exotic to our Europeanist colleagues. Soon it may no longer suffice for historians of Europe to make mere polite bows in the direction of China; they will have to become more familiar with Chinese history on a serious level in order to carry on their work in European history effectively.

In Confucian thought, individuals practice moral virtue both by restraining themselves and pursuing their own interests. This is a dual push-and-pull process. In today’s China, the latter is taken care of by capitalism and commerce. The former, however, needs to be taken care of by the rule of law. Otherwise, the system of governance is corrupted by unrestrained individual desires and selective enforcement of ‘virtue’ or law.

In this eyewitness story, we meet Tzu-hsi in the twilight of her reign. Advanced in age, the Empress on the Dragon Throne is no longer the young beauty whose skill at seduction and aptitude for court intrigue saw her rise from a lowly Imperial concubine to the second most powerful place under the Hsien-feng Emperor.

Investing in foreign aid would also help achieve China's strategic objectives, since aid could become a powerful tool in the expansaion of China's influence.

I suggest that the Western impact, at least in nineteenth-century China, was overstated (and misstated) by an earlier generation of American historians. An especially egregious example of this, I argue, was American treatment of the Opium War, the objective importance of which was not nearly so great as we—and an almost unanimous corps of Chinese historians—have imagined.

I think journalism anywhere should be based on social justice and impartiality, making contributions to society as well as taking responsibility in society. Whether you are capitalist or socialist or Marxist, journalists should have the same professional integrity. --Tan Hongkai

It is a truism, easily forgotten, that the West, in its modern phase, has not stood still. Also easily forgotten is the fact that "the West" is a relative concept only. Without an "East" or a "non-West" to compare it with, it would quite simply not exist; there would be no word for it in our vocabulary. If the concept of the West did not exist, of course, the spatial variations within the geographical area now subsumed under "the West" would loom larger in our minds. The difference between France and America might seem just as great as those between China and the West.

It is difficult and even dangerous to make predictions—especially about the future—of the bilateral relationship.

It is often said in soccer that a country's particular style of play bears the fingerprints of its social and political nature. Thus the Germans are unfailingly characterized as resourceful and organized, while Brazilians are said to dance with the ball to the free-form, samba rhythms of Carnival. In the husk of cliche lies a kernel of truth. The Communist system of China had produced a collectivist style of women's soccer from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s.

It was difficult to go to one of my favorite Asian restaurants alongside the southern section of the square. All around the front door, the exterior of the building looked like it’d had a bad case of acne due to pitting—but the small round holes were from bullets.

I was performing my ritual of sipping tea, shooting flirtatious glances and planning murder

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.

Meli ya kwanza kuondoka katika Bandari ya Salina Cruz kusini mwa Meksiko katika Bahari ya Pasifiki ni 'La Diosa de los Mares', 'Mungu wa Bahari', au 'Goddess of the Seas', Tani 6000, iliyoondoka saa tisa kamili usiku kuelekea Miami nchini Marekani; wakati ya mwisho kuondoka ilikuwa CSS ('Colonia Santita of the Seas', Tani 10000), na SPD ('El Silencio Depredador del Profundo', 'Mnyama Mtulivu wa Kina Kirefu', 'The Silent Predator of the Deep' – nyambizi ya Panthera Tigrisi), zilizoondoka saa kumi na moja alfajiri kuelekea Guatemala na Kolombia. Salina Cruz ni sehemu iliyopo kandokando mwa Bahari ya Pasifiki kusini kabisa mwa Meksiko na kaskazini-mashariki kwa Reparo Jicara katika jimbo la Oaxaca. Kambi ya Panthera Tigrisi ilijengwa ndani ya Msitu wa Benson Bennett – katika ufuko wa bahari kubwa kuliko zote ulimwenguni, iliyopuliza hewa na kuyumbisha miti anuai juu ya maabara kubwa kuliko zote katika Hemisifia ya Magharibi; ya kokeini, heroini, bangi, eksitasi na hielo ya China na Kolombia. Panthera Tigrisi alikamatwa katika Bahari ya Pasifiki. Kahima Kankiriho alikamatwa katika Msitu wa Bennett.

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.

Much older than myself, Martin was a distinguished and handsome career journalist who worked at the same newspaper I did.

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

I have interviewed more than three hundred Chinese women, exploring the ways in which their lives and loves have been defined largely by external forces. It didn’t take long to notice a clear pattern in how these forces changed according to their age – women from my grandparents’ generation were often forced into arranged marriages by their parents, while it was political turmoil that shaped the love lives of my parents’ generation. As for women of my own generation, money seemed to be the main driving force behind their search for a husband.

In addition, historical interpretations of this period in China have been shaped by Karl Marx's writings on this subject. Despite his anti-imperialist stance, Marx often uses racist expressions, such as "barbarous"and "hereditary stupidity," to describe Chinese culture and people.

Indebtedness among historians is a peculiar thing, however. We don’t simply, in mechanical fashion, inherit a body of knowledge, add something to it, and pass it on. We also question, test, and shake here and there the intellectual scaffolding surrounding our predecessors’ work, in the full, ironic knowledge that someone else is going to come along and give the scaffolding surrounding our own work a good shake, too, that no historian, in short, is ever permitted the final word.

In families one can’t choose one’s siblings. Within regions one doesn’t choose one’s neighbors. And if you are one of the world’s leading producers of a critical industrial resource like copper, in the end you can’t really choose your customers. China and Zambia will just have to get along.

In Italy there are about 60 million people and we know how high is the percentage of morons on national soil. However, in China there are about 1.4 billion people and in India almost 1.3 billion. Therefore I wonder then, if more or less all the world is a small village, with how many morons should we have to come to terms on the territory of this stupid planet. It's the same the world over, or the world is the same wherever you go!

I noticed a couple of dark things flying in a zigzagging pattern near the lights. I wondered what kind of night-flying strange birds they could be. Upon closer inspection, I realized they were bats.

In these remote corners, I have discovered a center point, where East met West, and although there has been a collision of cultures, there is now a new Christian identity that is distinctly Chinese. The circuitous mountain path in Yunnan province is red because over many years it has been soaked with blood.

I reserve magick for necessities, a bit like the good china. It has a time and a place, but eating peanut butter sandwiches off it each morning chips and devalues it.

Is it really true... that our aim as historians is in some sense to recapture past reality, “to retrieve the truth about the past?” If so, what do “past reality” and “the truth about the past” mean? How does the historian’s understanding of “reality” and “truth” differ—as most surely it does—from that of the direct participant? And what implications does this difference have for what we do as historians? It is not likely that questions of this sort will ever be finally answered. Yet clearly we must keep asking such questions if we are to maintain the highest levels of honesty and self-awareness concerning our work as historians.

I think that of all the principles for journalism, the most important is to complicate simple things and simplify complicated things. At first sight, you may think something is simple, but it may conceal a great deal. However, facing a very complex thing, you should find out its essence. -Jin Yongquan

It is not fiction. It is history. And both their histories match now.

It's a long story, one that could only happen in China.

It was breathtaking. It felt like being inside the beating heart of that pulsating, exotic nation.

I used to think the most important thing for a reporter was to be where the news is and be the first to know. Now I feel a reporter should be able to effect change. Your reporting should move people and motivate people to change the world. Maybe this is too idealistic. Young people who want to be journalists must, first, study and, second, recognize that they should never be the heroes of the story. ..A journalist must be curious, and must be humble. --Zhou Yijun

I was born to create things and solve problems. It’s in our blood. Ask my brother Stephen. Our lineage goes back to ancient China when our ancestors were the first to invent firepower, the kite, and even noodles.” - Auntabelle, Amazon Lee and the Ancient Undead of Rome by Kira G. and Kailin Gow

I was taken to a villa to meet Sabri al-Banna, known as 'Abu Nidal' ('father of struggle'), who was at the time emerging as one of Yasser Arafat's main enemies. The meeting began inauspiciously when Abu Nidal asked me if I would like to be trained in one of his camps. No thanks, I explained. From this awkward beginning there was a further decline. I was then asked if I knew Said Hammami, the envoy of the PLO in London. I did in fact know him. He was a brave and decent man, who in a series of articles in the London Times had floated the first-ever trial balloon for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. 'Well tell him he is a traitor,' barked my host. 'And tell him we have only one way with those who betray us.' The rest of the interview passed as so many Middle Eastern interviews do: too many small cups of coffee served with too much fuss; too many unemployed heavies standing about with nothing to do and nobody to do it with; too much ugly furniture, too many too-bright electric lights; and much too much faux bonhomie. The only political fact I could winnow, from Abu Nidal's vainglorious claims to control X number of 'fighters' in Y number of countries, was that he admired the People's Republic of China for not recognizing the State of Israel. I forget how I got out of his office.

I will tell him that I've always thought he was a monster. And that I want to be his bride

Living in China has made me appreciate my own country, with its tiny, ethnically diverse population of unassuming donut-eaters.

Long before Christopher Columbus, the celebrated Chinese navigator Zheng He travelled through the south and westward maritime routes in the Indian Ocean and established relations with more than thirty countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Look son, the Human Pig. (shocked)Mother, y-you're inhuman! (deadpan)Another animal could do this?

Martin was very pro-American in his attitude and statements. When I knew him, he was divorced, alone and a Korean who had never lived in Korea—neither in what became North or South Korea. A man without a country.

Master Li, how are we going to murder a man who laughs at axes?" I asked. We are going to experiment, dear boy. Our first order of business will be to find a deranged alchemist, which should not be very difficult. China," said Master Li, "is overstocked with deranged alchemists.

Media work needs ideals. Maybe thirty years from now, after I retire, I'll see the media mature and make the transition from political party, interest group, and corporate to truly public. But over the next ten years, the encroachment of commercialism and worldliness will loom much larger than the democratization we imagine. -Jin Yongquan in China Ink

Names can hide so much.

Nearly every time I strayed from the herd, I've made a lot of money. Wandering away from the action is the way to find the new action.

Never Underestimate. Just as in any other negotiation, watching before acting is as important as listening before speaking. It's doubly important in China, however, where customs are time-honored and breaches of protocol not so quickly forgiven.

No matter what China is going to become, China will never recover her true originality if she tries to please the West on Western terms.

No matter the border, the Mekong has been an indiscriminate giver and taker of life in Southeast Asia for thousands of years. It’s a paradox like civilization’s other great rivers—be it the Nile, Indus, Euphrates, Ganges or China’s Sorrow the Huang He—for without its waters life is a daily struggle for survival; yet with its waters life is a daily bet that natural disasters and diseases will visit someone else’s village, because it’s not if, but when it’s going to happen that’s the relevant question.

Not agreeing with something that happened in history or with another person’s traditions doesn’t provide license to eradicate or vilify entire aspects of the past.

Nothing in her life makes sense. All she craves is for the pieces of the puzzle to fit together again. She is sure one day it will happen. She just doesn’t know when. She can’t fight injustice alone – for that, she needs her friends.