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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Zhu Xiao-Mei
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June 11 - June 22, 2018
“The unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel, acts the beast.”
Montesquieu wrote: “I have never known any distress that an hour of reading did not relieve.”
As usual, my decision was more intuitive—more unconscious—than reasonable or logical. But then, reason had never much interested me. I couldn’t do what everyone else did: the impossible was much more exciting.
“Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.”
Thirty spokes join together at one hub, But it is the hole in the center That makes it operable. Clay is molded into a pot, But it is the emptiness inside That makes it useful. Doors and windows are cut To make a room, It is the empty spaces that we use. Therefore, existence is what we have, But non-existence is what we use.
As I see it, in life it is important to know how to work, without any thought of recompense.
Sometimes in life, work for work’s sake can reap the greatest benefit.
The crimes of those who lead are not the fault of those who are led; Governments are sometimes bandits, peoples never.
I learned how hard Paris can be for foreigners. We stuck together and accompanied each other though the inevitable administrative obstacles, without which France would not be France.
To breathe Paris preserves the soul. (Victor Hugo, Les Misérables)
Everyone knows that Paris is the land of temptations…”
As the great Indian author Rabindranath Tagore once remarked: “Acknowledge diversity and you will achieve unity.”
Life is a continual process of transformation, and it is this process of change that we should honor, rather than a return to the past.
The best man is like water. Water is good; it benefits all things and does not compete with them. It dwells in lowly places that all disdain. This is why it is so near to Tao.
Success in itself is nothing. Once you have achieved it, the most difficult task still lies ahead—mastering yourself.
They draw instead on a sort of natural strength—an inner power, fate—or simply life itself. In any case, it is something spontaneous and unconscious. I admire such people. There exists a life force in spontaneity and the unconscious that is often underestimated.
Christianity—which means a great deal to me—suffers from this flaw of wanting to convert others, to extend its influence. The very concept is foreign to the Chinese. Buddhists, Taoists, and Confucianists all practice religions that are more akin to philosophies. China never experienced anything like religious warfare, and the idea that one single religion can encapsulate truth is incomprehensible.
