Q0294

“The people are my siblings; things are my companions.” — Zhang Zai (Zhengmeng / Western Inscription)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Zhengmeng / Western Inscription. Theme: philosophy.

English

The people are my siblings; things are my companions.
Thinker Zhang Zai
School Neo-Confucianism
Source Zhengmeng / Western Inscription
Theme Browse all themes
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Zhengmeng / Western Inscription and files it under Neo-Confucianism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Zhang Zai

Zhang Zai (1020–1077) was a Northern Song Neo-Confucian cosmologist and moral thinker associated with the “gas” (qi) metaphysics of the period. Teaching in Guanzhong, he influenced later Cheng-Zhu orthodoxy even where they revised him.

How to read this passage

This passage is indexed under . Those labels identify the concepts it can illuminate; they do not replace the argument surrounding it in Zhengmeng / Western Inscription.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Zhang Zai. (n.d.). The people are my siblings; things are my companions. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0294

MLA: Zhang Zai. “The people are my siblings; things are my….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0294.

Chicago: Zhang Zai. “The people are my siblings; things are my….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0294.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “The people are my siblings; things are my…”?

The passage is attributed to Zhang Zai, Zhengmeng / Western Inscription. The archive attributes this English wording to Zhengmeng / Western Inscription and files it under Neo-Confucianism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Zhang Zai mean by philosophy?

This passage is indexed under . Those labels identify the concepts it can illuminate; they do not replace the argument surrounding it in Zhengmeng / Western Inscription.

Same thinker

More from Zhang Zai

  1. To establish the mind for Heaven and Earth; to secure the destiny of the people; to continue the interrupted learning of the past sages; to open peace for all ages.
  2. Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst.
  3. 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.

All quotations by Zhang Zai

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse all philosophy themes