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To Understand What Happens Now One Must Find The Cause, Which May Be Very Long Ago In Its Beginning, But Is Surely There, And Therefore A Knowledge Of History As Detailed As Possible Is Essential If We Are To Comprehend The Present And Be Prepared For The Future.

-Pearl S. Buck

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To Understand What Happens

Pearl S. Buck

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To Understand What Happens Now One Must Find The Cause, Which May Be Very Long Ago In Its Beginning, But Is Surely There, And Therefore A Knowledge Of History As Detailed As Possible Is Essential If We Are To Comprehend The Present And Be Prepared For The Future.

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I Learned To Distinguish Between The Two Kinds Of People In The World: Those Who Have Known Inescapable Sorrow And Those Who Have Not.

It Is Better To Be First With An Ugly Woman Than The Hundreth With A Beauty.

The Older A People Grows, The More It Absorbs Its Own Landscape And Builds To It.

Men Cannot Be Free In A Nation Where Women Are Forbidden Freedom.

Believing In Gods Always Causes Confusion.

No Writer, I Believe, Should Attempt A Novel Before He Is Thirty, And Not Then Unless He Has Been Hopelessly And Helplessly Involved In Life. For The Writer Who Goes Out To Find Material For A Novel, As A Fishermen Goes Out To Sea To Fish, Will Certainly Not Write A Good Novel. Life Has To Be Lived Thoughtlessly, Unconsciously, At Full Tilt And For No Purpose Except Its Own Sake Before It Becomes, Eventually, Good Material For A Novel.

The Heart Never Grows Old.

All In All, Vermont Is A Jewel State, Small But Precious.

Doing And Being Are Very Closely Tied Together, And Unless You Are Doing What You Secretly Want To Do, You Aren't Able To Be The Sort Of Person You Want To Be.

To Know What One Can Have And To Do With It, Being Prepared For No More, Is The Basis Of Equilibrium.

The Concept Of 'momism' Is Male Nonsense. It Is The Refuge Of A Man Seeking Excuses For His Own Lack Of Virility. I Have Listened To Many Women In Various Countries, And I Have Never Found A Woman Who Willingly 'mothers' Her Husband. The Very Idea Is Repulsive To Her. She Wants To Mother The Children While They Are Young, But Never Their Fathers. True, She May Be Forced Into The Role Of Mother By A Man's Weaknesses And Childishness, And Then She Accepts The Role With Dignity And Patience, Or With Anger And Impatience, But Always With A Secret, Profound Sadness Unexpressed And Inexpressible.

Purposeless Activity May Be A Phase Of Death.

Religion Was Their Meat And Their Excitement, Their Mental Food And Their Emotional Pleasure.

Let Woman Out Of The Home, Let Man Into It, Should Be The Aim Of Education. The Home Needs Man, And The World Outside Needs Woman.

Only The Brave Should Teach....teaching Is A Vocation. It Is As Sacred As Priesthood; As Innate A Desire, As Inescapable As The Genius Which Compels A Great Artist. If He Has Not The Concern For Humanity, The Love Of Living Creatures, The Vision Of The Priest And The Artist, He Must Not Teach.

It May Be That Religion Is Dead, And If It Is, We Had Better Know It And Set Ourselves To Try To Discover Other Sources Of Moral Strength Before It Is Too Late.

The Head Raised Too High Even In Good Will Be Struck Off Too Soon.

On This Earth, Though Far And Near, Without Love, There's Only Fear.

The Community Must Assume Responsibility For Each Child Within Its Confines. Not One Must Be Neglected Whatever His Condition. The Community Must See That Every Child Gets The Advantages And Opportunities Which Are Due Him As A Citizen And As A Human Being.

Our Bodies Can Be Mobilized By Law And Police And Men With Guns, If Necessary-but Where Shall We Find That Which Will Make Us Believe In What We Must Do, So That We Can Fight Through To Victory?

The Secret Of Joy In Work Is Contained In One Word - Excellence. To Know How To Do Something Well Is To Enjoy It.

I Do Not Believe There Is Any Important Difference Between Men And Women - Certainly Not As Much As They May Be Between One Woman And Another Or One Man And Another.

In Our Changing World Nothing Changes More Than Geography.

The Highest Civilizations -- The Longest To Last And I Believe The Most Successful In Human Terms -- Are Those Which Have Come The Closest To Achieving Real Understanding And Mutual Appreciation Between Men And Women.

In This Unbelievable Universe In Which We Live, There Are No Absolutes. Even Parallel Lines, Reaching Into Infinity, Meet Somewhere Yonder.

I Am Mentally Bifocal.

It Is Good To Know Our Universe. What Is New Is Only New To Us.

Nature And Environment

We Need To Restore The Full Meaning Of That Old Word, Duty. It Is The Other Side Of Rights.

I Am Comforted By Life's Stability, By Earth's Unchangeableness. What Has Seemed New And Frightening Assumes Its Place In The Unfolding Of Knowledge. It Is Good To Know Our Universe. What Is New Is Only New To Us.

Growth Itself Contains The Germ Of Happiness.

There Was An Old Abbot In One Temple And He Said Something Of Which I Think Often And It Was This, That When Men Destroy Their Old Gods They Will Find New Ones To Take Their Place.

Prejudice ... Is A Subjective Emotion Which Expresses Itself Upon Others Only Because Of An Inner Necessity For Release. The Object Is Irrelevant And Opportune. The Person Who Feels Prejudice Is The Victim Of Himself And His Own Unhappiness And Dissatisfaction. Life Is Not What He Wants It To Be And It Has Not Been What He Wishes It Had Been.

Self-expression Must Pass Into Communication For Its Fulfillment.

You Cannot Make Yourself Feel Something You Do Not Feel, But You Can Make Yourself Do Right In Spite Of Your Feelings.

Emotions Feelings

Destructiveness Comes Only When Life Isn't Lived. People Who Can Live Their Lives Don't Destroy Themselves.

Destructiveness

The Person Who Tries To Live Alone Will Not Succeed As A Human Being. His Heart Withers If It Does Not Answer Another Heart. His Mind Shrinks Away If He Hears Only The Echoes Of His Own Thoughts And Finds No Other Inspiration.

A Foreigner Is A Friend I Have Yet To Meet.

The Basic Discovery About Any People Is The Discovery Of The Relationship Between Its Men And Its Women.

One Faces The Future With One's Past.

When Good People In Any Country Cease Their Vigilance And Struggle, Then Evil Men Prevail.

There Is No Beauty Without Order.

Nothing And No One Can Destroy The Chinese People. They Are Relentless Survivors.

A Favorite Means Of Escaping The Solution To Any Problem Is To Declare It Too Complex For Solution. This Absolves Us From Attempting Solution. ... Any Problem Is Too Complex To Solve When We Do Not Wish To Accept The Conditions Of Solution. Solution Is Possible Where Acceptance Is Ready.

The Melting-pot Idea Is Futile ... The Brew In A Melting Pot Is Always Boiling Over.

It Certainly Must Have Been A Relief For Women Of The Country To Realize That One Could Be A Woman And A Lady And Yet Be Thoroughly Political.

There Is One Word That Can Be The Guide For Your Life- It Is The Word Reciprocity.

An Intelligent, Energetic, Educated Woman Cannot Be Kept In Four Walls - Even Satin-lined, Diamond-studded Walls - Without Discovering Sooner Or Later That They Are Still A Prison Cell.

Love Can Never Be A Sin. It Can Be Only A Blessing. Even If You're Not Loved In Return -- Though I Can't Imagine That -- To Love Is A Proof Of Life -- Indeed, It's The Only Proof, For Once You Can't Love Another Human Being, You're Not Alive.

Perhaps One Has To Be Very Old Before One Learns To Be Amused Rather Than Shocked.

There Is An Alchemy In Sorrow. It Can Be Transmuted Into Wisdom, Which, If It Does Not Bring Joy, Can Yet Bring Happiness.

What Seems New Is Only New To Us.

The Vicious Result Of Privilege Is That The Creature Who Receives It Becomes Incapacitated By It As By A Disease.

Food For All Is A Necessity. Food Should Not Be A Merchandise, To Be Bought And Sold As Jewels Are Bought And Sold By Those Who Have The Money To Buy. Food Is A Human Necessity, Like Water And Air, It Should Be Available.

You Can Judge Your Age By The Amount Of Pain You Feel When You Come In Contact With A New Idea.

Write A Novel If You Must, But Think Of Money As An Unlikely Accident. Get Your Reward Out Of Writing It, And Try To Be Content With That.

A Man Is Educated And Turned Out To Work. But A Woman Is Educated And Turned Out To Grass.

The Greatest Problem That War Leaves, In A Man, Is How To Recapture Reality. That's Because War Is Unreal.

None Who Have Always Been Free Can Understand The Terrible Fascinating Power Of The Hope Of Freedom To Those Who Are Not Free.

What A Man Does In His Own House Cannot Concern The Nation.

People On The Whole Are Very Simple-minded, In Whatever Country One Finds Them. They Are So Simple As To Take Literally, More Often Than No, The Things Their Leaders Tell Them.

Many People Lose The Small Joys In The Hope For The Big Happiness.

It Is Ironical That In An Age When We Have Prided Ourselves On Our Progress In The Intelligent Care And Teaching Of Children We Have At The Same Time Put Them At The Mercy Of New And Most Terrible Weapons Of Destruction.

To Understand What Happens Now One Must Find The Cause, Which May Be Very Long Ago In Its Beginning, But Is Surely There, And Therefore A Knowledge Of History As Detailed As Possible Is Essential If We Are To Comprehend The Present And Be Prepared For The Future.

Most Mothers Kiss And Scold Together.

The Feeling One Has After Coming To Know American Women Is That They Are Starving At Their Sources.

He Was Part Of A Whole, A People Scattered Over The Earth And Yet Eternally One And Indivisible. Wherever A Jew Lived, In Whatever Safety And Isolation, He Still Belonged To His People.

I Am Always Glad When Any Of My Books Can Be Put Into An Inexpensive Edition, Because I Like To Think That Any People Who Might Wish To Read Them Can Do So. Surely Books Ought To Be Within Reach Of Everybody.

Iowans Know Themselves And What They Are Doing. They Are Doing Well.

A Knowledge Of History As Detailed As Possible Is Essential If We Are To Comprehend The Present And Be Prepared For The Future. Fate...is Not The Blind Superstition Or Helplessness That Waits Stupidly For What May Happen. Fate Is Unalterable Only In The Sense That Given A Cause, A Certain Result Must Follow, But No Cause Is Inevitable In Itself, And Man Can Shape His World If He Does Not Resign Himself To Ignorance.

None But The Ignorant Can Be Bored By Life. To The Lovers Of Learning, Life Is Pure Adventure Shared With Adventurers.

In A Democracy Such As Ours The Leading Minds Seldom Achieve A Place Of Permanent Influence. And The Men Who Sit In Congress Or Even In The White House Are Usually Not Our Leading Minds. They Are Not The Thinkers. Still Less Have They Time For Reflection.

Every Great Mistake Has A Halfway Moment, A Split Second When It Can Be Recalled And Perhaps Remedied.

Positive Thinking

It Is Not Healthy When A Nation Lives Within A Nation, As Colored Americans Are Living Inside America. A Nation Cannot Live Confident Of Its Tomorrow If Its Refugees Are Among Its Own Citizens.

To Serve Is Beautiful, But Only If It Is Done With Joy And A Whole Heart And A Free Mind.

All Things Are Possible Until They Are Proved Impossible - And Even The Impossible May Only Be So, As Of Now.

Music Is Not Technique And Melody, But The Meaning Of Life Itself, Infinitely Sorrowful And Unbearably Beautiful.

It Is Natural Anywhere That People Like Their Own Kind, But It Is Not Necessarily Natural That Their Fondness For Their Own Kind Should Lead Them To The Subjection Of Whole Groups Of Other People Not Like Them.

There Are Many Ways Of Breaking A Heart. Stories Were Full Of Hearts Broken By Love, But What Really Broke A Heart Was Taking Away Its Dream -- Whatever That Dream Might Be.

I Feel No Need For Any Other Faith Than My Faith In Human Beings.

As For New York City, It Is A Place Apart. There Is Not Its Match In Any Other Country In The World.

In A Mood Of Faith And Hope My Work Goes On. A Ream Of Fresh Paper Lies On My Desk Waiting For The Next Book. I Am A Writer And I Take Up My Pen To Write.

Fatalism Is A False Premise. What Will Be Is Not Necessarily What Must Be.

As For Inhibitions, I've Spent A Lifetime Developing Them, And I Don't Intend To Lose Them.

It Is Easy To Overthrow A Government But Very Difficult To Build A New One.

The Only Real Danger To Our Country Is From Within, That We Forget Our Own Power To Be What We Want To Be.

The Body Was So Little A Part Of Him That Its Final Stillness Seemed Nothing Of Importance. He Was Half Out Of It Anyway And Death Was Only A Slipping Out Of It Altogether And Being At Last What He Always Was, A Spirit. We Buried The Pearly Shell Upon The Mountain Top.

Be Born Anywhere, Little Embryo Novelist, But Do Not Be Born Under The Shadow Of A Great Creed, Not Under The Burden Of Original Sin, Not Under The Doom Of Salvation.

Anger Can Give Energy To The Mind But Only If It Is Harnessed And Held In Control.

When Men Destroy Their Old Gods They Will Find New Ones To Take Their Place.

When We Know What We Want To Prove, We Go Out And Find Our Facts. They Are Always There.

No Daughter Is Ever Her Mother's Darling. That Spot Is Always Reserved For The Son.

The Boundary Between Civilization And Barbarism Is Difficult To Draw: Put One Ring In Your Nose And You Are A Savage, Put Two Rings In Your Ears And You Are Civilized.

Man Was Lost If He Went To A Usurer, For The Interest Ran Faster Than A Tiger Upon Him.

Nature Knows No Sex Limitations And Does Not Bestow Brains Upon Men Alone. Daughters Inherit Gifts Exactly As Often And As Much As Sons.

It Is Better To Learn Early Of The Inevitable Depths, For Then Sorrow And Death Can Take Their Proper Place In Life, And One Is Not Afraid.

Hunger Makes A Thief Of Any Man.

Hunger And Poverty

It Is Love Itself That Is Important -- The Ability To Love, No Matter Whom You Love. For When You Can No Longer Love Anyone, You Are No Longer A Living Person. The Heart Dies If It Loses The Capacity To Love.

Capacity To Love

Some Of The Biggest Failures I Ever Had Were Successes.

Success And Failure

Success Failure

Because Psychologists Have Been Able To Discover, Exactly As In A Slow-motion Picture, The Way The Human Creature Acquires Knowledge And Habits, The Normal Child Has Been Vastly Helped By What The Retarded Have Taught Us.

The Rich Are Always Afraid.

Nothing And No One Can Destroy The Chinese People. They Are Relentless Survivors. They Are The Oldest Civilized People On Earth. Their Civilization Passes Through Phases But Its Basic Characteristics Remain The Same. They Yield, They Bend To The Wind, But They Never Break.

Only People Who Are Assured Of Daily Food Can Concern Themselves With Matters Of Principle And Ethic. A Man Will Become A Slave Rather Than Starve.

Nothing In Life Is As Good As The Marriage Of True Minds Between Man And Woman. As Good? It Is Life Itself.

Science And Religion, Religion And Science, Put It As It May, They Are The Two Sides Of The Same Glass, Through Which We See Darkly Until These Two Focus Together, Reveal The Truth.

For War To Man, Like Childbirth To Women, Is Simplifying In Its Emotions And Activities. All The Real Problems Of Life Can Be Put Aside While The One Thing Is Done And Little Thought Is Needed To Do It. ... His Hatreds Can Be Expressed Without Censure, He Can Let His Emotions Run Free, He Can Behave As Dramatically, As Heroically As He Likes, And No One Laughs At Him. It Is Almost Impossible For A Man To Behave Heroically In The Cool And Ordinary Times Of Peace. But In War Anything Is Allowed Him, He Is Praised And Applauded And Made Much Of, As Women Are Excused And Allowed For In Pregnancy.

If You Start To Revise Before You've Reached The End, You're Likely To Begin Dawdling With The Revisions And Putting Off The Difficult Task Of Writing.

A Hungry Man Can't See Right Or Wrong. He Just Sees Food.

She Had Always Been Too Wise To Tell Him All She Thought And Felt, Knowing By Some Intuition Of Her Own Womanhood That No Man Wants To Know Everything Of Any Woman.

I Am An Inveterate Homemaker, It Is At Once My Pleasure, My Recreation, And My Handicap. Were I A Man, My Books Would Have Been Written In Leisure, Protected By A Wife And A Secretary And Various Household Officials. As It Is, Being A Woman, My Work Has Had To Be Done Between Bouts Of Homemaking.

The Best Government In The World, The Best Religion, The Best Traditions Of Any People, Depend Upon The Good Or Evil Of The Men And Women Who Administer Them.

Too Many Escape Into Complexity These Days. For It Is An Escape For Persons To Cry, When This Question Of The Equality Of Peoples Is Raised In India Or In Our Own South, 'ah, But The Situation Is Not So Simple.' ... No Great Stride Forward Is Ever Made For The Individual Or For The Human Race Unless The Complex Situation Is Reduced To One Simple Question And Its Simple Answer.

I Don't Wait For Moods - You'd Never Get Anything Done If You Did.

... [i]n Any War A Victory Means Another War, And Yet Another, Until Some Day Inevitably The Tides Turn, And The Victor Is The Vanquished, And The Circle Reverses Itself, But Remains Nevertheless A Circle.

Men Would Rather Be Starving And Free Than Fed In Bonds.

I Know That The Only Completely Happy Life For Man And For Woman Is Their Life, First Together, And Then With Their Children. I Am A Firm Believer That No Marriage Can Be Really Happy, And No Home A Happy One For The Children As Well, Unless Man Puts Woman First And Woman Puts Man First, Each For The Other The Giver Of Every Good Gift. Children Are The Fruit Of This Total Love.

Race Prejudice Is Not Only A Shadow Over The Colored It Is A Shadow Over All Of Us, And The Shadow Is Darkest Over Those Who Feel It Least And Allow Its Evil Effects To Go On.

An Artist Is Always Seeking Revelation.

What Is A Neglected Child? He Is A Child Not Planned For, Not Wanted. Neglect Begins, Therefore, Before He Is Born.

It Is Worse Than Folly... Not To Recognize The Truth, For In It Lies The Tinder For Tomorrow.

God Is Not In The Vastness Of Greatness. He Is Hid In The Vastness Of Smallness . He Is Not In The General. He Is In The Particular.

He Saw On The Paper A Picture Of A Man, White-skinned, Who Hung Upon A Crosspiece Of Wood. The Man Was Without Clothes Except For A Bit About His Loins, And To All Appearences He Was Dead, Since His Head Drooped Upon His Shoulder And His Eyes Were Closed Above His Bearded Lips. Wang Lung Looked At The Pictured Man In Horror And With Increasing Interest.

When One Commits One's Self To An Airborne Craft And The Door Is Fastened Against Earth And Home, There Is No Escape Even By Running Away. The Result Is A Strange Sense Of Peace - Desperate, Perhaps, But Peace.

Love Dies Only When Growth Stops.

Though Some Men Did Not Make War As Others Did, If They Sold Their Goods For Profit To The War-makers, Did It Make Them Better Because The Weapon Was Not In Their Own Hands, If They Had Made The Weapon And Sold It And So Put It Into The Hands Of Those Used It Upon The Innocent?

Men Of Action," Whose Minds Are Too Busy With The Day's Work To See Beyond It. They Are Essential Men, We Cannot Do Without Them, And Yet We Must Not Allow All Our Vision To Be Bound By The Limitations Of "men Of Action.

We Should So Provide For Old Age That It May Have No Urgent Wants Of This World To Absorb It From Meditation On The Next. It Is Awful To See The Lean Hands Of Dotage Making A Coffer Of The Grave.

But What Happens When Her Beauty Is Torn From Her Like A Cover From A Book? Will He Care To Read Her Then, Although Her Pages Speak Of Nothing But Love For Him?

Only Very Coarse Persons Wanted Wars.

At My Age The Bones Are Water In The Morning Until Food Is Given Them.

Upon The Profound Discontent Of The Young In Every Country Do I Set My Faith. I Beg You, The Young, To Be Discontented. I Pray That You May Rebel Against What Is Wrong, Not With Feeble Negative Complaining But With Strong Positive Assertion Of What Is Right For All Humanity.

We Learn As Much From Sorrow As From Joy, As Much From Illness As From Health, From Handicap As From Advantage And Indeed Perhaps More.

When The People Of Any Country Choose Peace At All Costs, Not Even Generals Can Make War.

Introversion, At Least If Extreme, Is A Sign Of Mental And Spiritual Immaturity.

Nothing Is Menial Where There Is Love.

The Main Barrier Between East And West Today Is That The White Man Is Not Willing To Give Up His Superiority And The Colored Man Is No Longer Willing To Endure His Inferiority.

For Our Democracy Has Been Marred By Imperialism, And It Has Been Enlightened Only By Individual And Sporadic Efforts At Freedom.

Democracies Have

An Englishman Is Never Afraid Of Being Laughed At. He Just Thinks The Other Fellow Is A Fool. But Americans Still Can't Risk Anybody Laughing At Them.

Vermont Is A Country Unto Itself.

It Is Better Not To Say "lend." There Is Only Giving.

To Know How To Do Something Well Is To Enjoy It.

For No Country Is A True Democracy Whose Women Have Not An Equal Share In Life With Men, And Until We Realize This We Shall Never Achieve A Real Democracy On This Earth.

When We Define Democracy Now It Must Still Be As A Thing Hoped For But Not Seen.

Love Cannot Be Forced, Love Cannot Be Coaxed And Teased. It Comes Out Of Heaven, Unasked And Unsought.

Life Without Idealism Is Empty Indeed. We Just Hope Or Starve To Death.

Idealism And Realism

Every Era Of Renaissance Has Come Out Of New Freedoms For Peoples. The Coming Renaissance Will Be Greater Than Any In Human History, For This Time All The Peoples Of The Earth Will Share In It.

Profound As Race Prejudice Is Against The Negro American, It Is Not Practically As Far-reaching As The Prejudice Against Women. For Stripping Away The Sentimentality Which Makes Mother's Day And Best American Mother Contests, The Truth Is That Women Suffer All The Effects Of A Minority.

Our Children ... Are Not Treated With Sufficient Respect As Human Beings, And Yet From The Moment They Are Born They Have This Right To Respect. We Keep Them Children For Too Long, Their World Separate From The Real World Of Life.

Life Is Stronger Than Death.

The Young Do Not Know Enough To Be Prudent, And Therefore They Attempt The Impossible - And Achieve It, Generation After Generation.

When Hope Is Taken Away From A People, Moral Degeneration Follows Swiftly Thereafter.

People Don't Care To Read What They Already Think Or What Any People Think - They Know All That Well Enough. They Want To Know What They Ought To Think.

You Are Right,” He Had Said. “love Is Not The Word. No One Can Love His Neighbor. Say, Rather, ‘know Thy Neighbor As Thyself.” That Is, Comprehend His Hardships And Understand His Position, Deal With His Faults As Gently As With Your Own. Do Not Judge Him Where You Do Not Judge Yourself. Madame, This Is The Meaning Of The Word Love.

The Typhoon Came Out Of The Sea First As A Deep Hollow Roar. ... I Was Surrounded By The Madness, The Unreason, Of Uncontrolled, Undisciplined Energy. None Of This Made Any Sense. It Was Worse Than Useless - It Was Nature Destroying Its Own Creation - Its Own Self. To Create By The Long Process Of Growth And Then To Destroy By A Fit Of Wild Emotion - Was This Not Madness, Was This Not Unreason?

The Truth Has Never Been Told About Women In History: That Everywhere Man Has Gone Woman Has Gone Too, And What He Has Done She Has Done Also. Women Are Ignorant Of Their Own Past And Ignorant Of Their Own Importance In That Past.

At Heart A Truly Modest Man, He Had Nevertheless The Modest Man's Pride In His Modesty In The Face Of Achievement.

Euthanasia Is A Long, Smooth-sounding Word, And It Conceals Its Danger As Long, Smooth Words Do, But The Danger Is There, Nevertheless.

You Are Free When You Gain Back Yourself,” Madame Wu Said. “you Can Be As Free Within These Walls As You Could Be In The Whole World. And How Could You Be Free If, However Far You Wander, You Still Carry Inside Yourself The Constant Thought Of Him? See Where You Belong In The Stream Of Life. Let It Flow Through You, Cool And Strong. Do Not Dam It With Your Two Hands, Lest He Break The Dam And So Escape You. Let Him Go Free, And You Will Be Free.

The Bitterest Creature Under Heaven Is The Wife Who Discovers That Her Husband's Bravery Is Only Bravado, That His Strength Is Only A Uniform, That His Power Is But A Gun In The Hands Of A Fool.

I Learned Early To Understand That There Is No Such Condition In Human Affairs As Absolute Truth. There Is Only Truth As People See It, And Truth, Even In Fact, May Be Kaleidoscopic In Its Variety. The Damage Such Perception Did To Me I Have Felt Ever Sincei Could Never Belong Entirely To One Side Of Any Question.

Yet There Were Times When He Did Love Her With All The Kindness She Demanded, And How Was She To Know What Were Those Times? Alone She Raged Against His Cheerfulness And Put Herself At The Mercy Of Her Own Love And Longed To Be Free Of It Because It Made Her Less Than He And Dependent On Him. But How Could She Be Free Of Chains She Had Put Upon Herself? Her Soul Was All Tempest. The Dreams She Had Once Had Of Her Life Were Dead. She Was In Prison In The House. And Yet Who Was Her Jailer Except Herself?

I Don't Wait For Moods. You Accomplish Nothing If You Do That. Your Mind Must Know It Has Got To Get Down To Work.

Every Event Has Had Its Cause, And Nothing, Not The Least Wind That Blows, Is Accident Or Causeless.

There Will Never Cease To Be Ferment In The World Unless People Are Sure Of Their Food.

Never, If You Can Possibly Help It, Write A Novel. It Is, In The First Place, A Thoroughly Unsocial Act. It Makes One Obnoxious To One's Family And To One's Friends. One Sits About For Many Weeks, Months, Even Years, In The Worst Cases, In A State Of Stupefaction.

The Truly Creative Mind In Any Field Is No More Than This: A Human Creature Born Abnormally, Inhumanly Sensitive.

Can Such Stiff And Formal Moldings As Words Capture The Spirit-essence Of Love?

Order Is The Shape Upon Which Beauty Depends.

Love Alone Could Waken Love.

Endurance Of Inescapable Sorrow Is Something Which Has To Be Learned Alone. And Only To Endure Is Not Enough. Endurance Can Be A Harsh And Bitter Root In One's Life, Bearing Poisonous And Gloomy Fruit, Destroying Other Lives. Endurance Is Only The Beginning. There Must Be Acceptance And The Knowledge That Sorrow Fully Accepted Brings Its Own Gifts. For There Is An Alchemy In Sorrow. It Can Be Transmuted Into Wisdom, Which, If It Does Not Bring Joy, Can Yet Bring Happiness.

Somehow I Had Learned From Thoreau, Who Doubtless Learned It From Confucius, That If A Man Comes To Do His Own Good For You, Then Must You Flee That Man And Save Yourself

Just About Everything Significant In My Life Happened After I Passed Forty. I Was A Housewife And Mother, But Yearned To Be A Writer. I Worked At My Writing Whenever I Could Snatch A Moment, And I Assembled Several Manuscripts. I Was Just About Forty When My First Novel, East Wind, West Wind, Was Published. Then A Few Months Later Came The Good Earth. My Career Was Launched At Last, And It Has Given Me The Richest Possible Satisfaction

The Proper Place To Eat Lobster ... Is In A Lobster Shack As Close To The Sea As Possible. There Is No Menu Card Because There Is Nothing Else To Eat Except Boiled Lobster With Melted Butter.

To Find Joy In Work Is To Discover The Fountain Of Youth.

Life Is The Wonder With Which We Are All Infused.

Now, Five Years Is Nothing In A Man's Life Except When He Is Very Young And Very Old... - Wang Lung

I Feel No Need For Any Other Faith Than My Faith In The Kindness Of Human Beings. I Am So Absorbed In The Wonder Of Earth And The Life Upon It That I Cannot Think Of Heaven And Angels.

If Our American Way Of Life Fails The Child, It Fails Us All.

If There Is No Other Life, Then This One Has Been Enough To Make It Worth Being Born Myself...a Human Being.

The Mind That Doggedly Insists On Prejudice Often Has Not Intelligence Enough To Change.

There's Two Kinds Of Folk In The World, Just Like There's Two Kinds Of Life In A Seed. Something Sends One Kind Up To Hunt Its Food In The Light And Air, And Sends The Other Kind Down Into The Earth To Make The Roots.

My First Vivid Memory Is...when First I Looked Into Her Face And She Looked Into Mine. That I Do Remember, And That Exchanging Looks I Have Carried With Me All Of My Life. We Recognized Each Other. I Was Her Child And She Was My Mother.

We Must Have Hope Or Starve To Death.

To Know How To Read Is To Light A Lamp In The Mind, To Release The Soul From Prison, To Open A Gate To The Universe." From Pavilion Of Women Page 292

No One Really Understood Music Unless He Was A Scientist, Her Father Had Declared, And Not Just A Scientist, Either, Oh, No, Only The Real Ones, The Theoreticians, Whose Language Was Mathematics. She Had Not Understood Mathematics Until He Had Explained To Her That It Was The Symbolic Language Of Relationships. "and Relationships," He Had Told Her, "contained The Essential Meaning Of Life."

Once The 'what' Is Decided, The 'how' Always Follows. We Must Not Make The 'how' An Excuse For Not Facing And Accepting The 'what.'

A Good Marriage Is One Which Allows For Change And Growth In The Individuals And In The Way They Express Their Love.

If I Have Learned Anything In My Long Life It Is To Be Grateful For Every Occasion When I Followed My Sympathies And Avoided My Antipathies.

Add To This Cruelly Delicate Organism The Overpowering Necessity To Create, Create, Create - So That Without The Creating Of Music Or Poetry Or Books Or Buildings Or Something Of Meaning, His Very Breath Is Cut Off From Him. He Must Create, Must Pour Out Creation. By Some Strange, Unknown, Inward Urgency He Is Not Really Alive Unless He Is Creating.

The Test Of A Civilization Is In The Way That It Cares For Its Helpless Members

French Is The Most Beautiful,” He Said, “and Italian Is The Most Poetic, And Russian The Most Powerful, German The Most Solid. But More Business Is Done In English Than In Any Other.

What The Common Man Cannot Understand He Hates.

War Is The Most Devastating Endemic And Epidemic Disease The Human Race Has To Endure, And Yet Too Little Has Been Done To Discover And Eliminate Its Cause By Intelligent Early Control.

Inside Myself Is A Place Where I Live All Alone And That Is Where I Renew My Springs That Never Dry Up.

A Person's Heart Withers If It Does Not Answer Another Heart.

Some Are Kissing Mothers And Some Are Scolding Mothers, But It Is Love Just The Same, And Most Mothers Kiss And Scold Together.

A Woman's Mind Is Not An Instrument Apart From Her Other Being. She Does Not Separate Herself As Man Does, Now Flesh, Now Mind, Now Heart. She Is There As One, A Unity Complete And Unified.

There Will Be No Real Content Among American Women Unless They Are Made And Kept More Ignorant Or Unless They Are Given Equal Opportunity With Men To Use What They Have Been Taught. And American Men Will Not Be Really Happy Until Their Women Are.

All Birth Is Unwilling.

Starvation Is A Shame And Disgrace To The World And Totally Unnecessary In Modern Times.

Chinese Are Wise In Comprehending Without Many Words What Is Inevitable And Inescapable And Therefore Only To Be Borne.

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