Q0479

Liang Qichao

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

By “renewing the people” we do not mean abandoning all that is old to follow others. Renewal has two senses: to refine what we already have, and to supply what we lack.
Thinker Liang Qichao
School Modern Chinese Enlightenment Thought
Source On Renewing the People
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with On Renewing the People, within the tradition of Modern Chinese Enlightenment Thought. 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 Liang Qichao'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: Liang Qichao. (n.d.). By “renewing the people” we do not mean abandoning all that is old to follow others. Renewal has two senses: to refine what we already have, and to supply what we lack. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0479

MLA: Liang Qichao. “By “renewing the people” we do not mean….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0479.

Chicago: Liang Qichao. “By “renewing the people” we do not mean….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0479.

Same thinker

More from Liang Qichao

  1. The two sayings I have found most useful in life are these: responsibility, and delight.… What I speak of today as respect for one's work is responsibility; delight in one's work is interest. I deeply believe that a reasonable human life should be like this.
  2. Every occupation has its interest — if only you keep at it, interest will naturally arise.
  3. If the youth are wise, the nation is wise; if the youth are prosperous, the nation is prosperous; if the youth are strong, the nation is strong.

All quotations by Liang Qichao

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