Q0491

The Book of Changes

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

When exhausted, change; when changing, one gets through; when getting through, one endures.
Thinker The Book of Changes
School Classic
Source Yijing, Xici II
Theme Change
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Yijing, Xici II, within the tradition of Classic. 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 change, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In The Book of Changes'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: The Book of Changes. (n.d.). When exhausted, change; when changing, one gets through; when getting through, one endures. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0491

MLA: The Book of Changes. “When exhausted, change; when changing, one gets through;….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0491.

Chicago: The Book of Changes. “When exhausted, change; when changing, one gets through;….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0491.

Same thinker

More from The Book of Changes

  1. Heaven moves with vigor; the gentleman accordingly strengthens himself without cease.
  2. Earth's condition is receptive devotion; the gentleman accordingly thickens his virtue to bear things.

All quotations by The Book of Changes

Same theme

More on change

  1. Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow.
  2. The universe is change; life is opinion.
  3. The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.
  4. For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
  5. I do not portray being. I portray passing.

Browse the change theme