Philosophy quotes — page 29

Written from the periphery, for persons and peoples of the periphery, this book nonetheless also addresses readers in the center of the present world system.

Be a philosopher; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.

Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst.

The Great Void has no physical form; it is the original substance of qi. Its gathering and dispersing are but the passing forms of change.

It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves.

The Buddhist teaching is in the world; awakening is not apart from the world. To seek enlightenment apart from the world is like looking for a hare's horn.

If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha; if you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch; if you meet an arhat, kill the arhat.

There is a true person of no rank who is always coming and going through the gates of your face.

There is no place in Buddhism for special effort. Just be ordinary: put on your clothes, eat your food, and lie down when you are tired.

It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses; or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind; or lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination.

That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow.

A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being: as it perceives ideas, it is called understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates about ideas, it is called will.

To love a being is to say: thou, thou shalt not die.

A mystery is a problem which encroaches upon its own data, invading them, as it were, and thereby transcending itself as a mere problem.

Ci poetry takes jingjie — the aesthetic realm — as its highest: with jingjie it naturally attains a lofty style and famous lines of its own.

Jingjie is not a matter of scenery alone: joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness are also realms of the human heart. Whoever can write true scenery and true feeling may be said to have jingjie.

To kill one man is called unrighteousness and incurs one capital crime; by this reckoning, to kill ten men is ten times unrighteous and incurs ten capital crimes.

The task of the humane is to promote the benefit of all under Heaven and to eliminate its harm.

Philosophy is systematic, reflective thinking on life.