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Quotes by Chinese Authors
"Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles."
"A good commander is benevolent and unconcerned with fame."
"For this reason the gentleman will employ a man on a distant mission and observe his degree of loyalty, will employ him close at hand and observe his degree of respect. He will hand him troublesome affairs and observe how well he manages them, will suddenly ask his advice and observe how wisely he answers. He will exact some difficult promise from him and see how well he keeps it, turn over funds to him and see with what benevolence he dispenses them, inform him of the danger he is in and note how faithful he is to his duties. He will get him drunk with wine and observe how well he handles himself, place him in mixed company and see what effect beauty has upon him. By applying these nine tests, you may determine who is the unworthy man."
"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."
"He who is concerned only with the purity of his own life ruins the great human relations."
"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, 'We did this ourselves.'"
"Stop thinking, and end your problems."
"I am not one who was born with great wisdom. I love the ancients and diligently seek wisdom among them."
"When your army has crossed the border, you should burn your boats and bridges, in order to make it clear to everybody that you have no hankering after home."
"Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment."
"Be the chief but never the lord."
"When the best leader's work is done the people say, "We did it ourselves.""
"Even when walking in the company of two other men, I am bound to be able to learn from them. The good points of the one I copy, the bad points of the other I correct in myself."
"To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness."
"If you expect great things of yourself and demand little of others, you'll keep resentment far away."
"As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it."
"Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory; show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat."
"He wins his battles by making no mistakes.Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated."
"Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows, the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing."
"To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy."
"It is when those who are not strong enough have made some moderate amount of progress that they fail and give up..."
"Knowing it does not compare with loving it, loving it does not compare with delighting in it."
"We on our part will stick to our independent foreign policy of peace, acting forever as a strong defender of world peace and a persistent proponent of common development."
"If I raise one corner for someone and he cannot come back with the other three, I do not go on."
"If we know that our own men are in a condition to attack, but are unaware that the enemy is not open to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory."
"We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness insidethat holds whatever we want.We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner spacethat makes it livable.We work with being, but non-being is what we use."
"The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness."
"Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously."
"The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable."
"When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is INSUBORDINATION."
"Understand both yourself and your enemy, and you shall always emerge victorious."
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat."
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