Q0294

Zhang Zai

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

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

Source context

This English passage is associated with Western Inscription, within the tradition of Neo-Confucianism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Zhang Zai's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

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.

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.

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 the philosophy theme