Three Daughters of Madame Liang Quotes

“It is not poverty that is to be heared, but the lack of balance between riches and poverty.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“When people work beyond their destiny, all they do fails.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“And as for equality, are the fingers on one hand equal in length? Each has its place.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“Friendship between tow persons, or two nations, is an unbreakable bond, a tie which cannot be cut. An honourable heart does not cast aside a friend because he is in trouble, nor even if he changes his nature and becomes a criminal. Between two nations friendship must also be eternal, else the friend is false and being false in one event was always false. And what was our crime against the Americans? The Great Change? But is it a crime to change a government? By whose law can it be called a crime? It is of no more importance, between friends, than for one to change his garment! For this lack of reason our love for Americans is changed to hate. I fear for the future! A generation is growing up here in our country which has never seen an American face or heard an American voice. What do they know of Americans except to hate them as they are taught to do? There is no hate so dangerous as that which once was love.
....
- To the Americans, Communism is a crime. They will have none of it.
- But why, when it is ours, not theirs?
....
- I suppose this American concern with a form of government springs from their own history. Their ancestors fled from Europe to escape tyranny from their ancient rulers. Freedom was their dream. To them, therefore, tyranny is endemic in Communism. They will have none of it. It is not we who are Chinese whom they hate. It is the tyranny they imagine.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“If a superior man undertakes something and tried to lead,
He goes astray.
But if he follows, he finds guidance.
It is favourable to find friends in the West and South,
and quiet perseverance brings good fortune.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“Western scholars, contemptible in their pretentious and shallow scholarship, have translated Tao as Way. How foolish! Tao is Spirit, the Spirit that permeates all heaven and all earth, even those far beyond ours. Tao includes all that is not, and all that is; Lao Tzu describes it in these words.

Silent, aloof, alone,
It changes not, nor fails, but touches all.
I do not know its name,
One name for it is Tao.
Pressed for designation,
I call it -- Tao.
Tao means Outgoing,
Outgoing, Far-reaching,
Far-reaching, Return.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“Throw eggs at a rock, and though one uses all the eggs in the world, the rock remains the same.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“In the ancient Book of History, upon which Confucius himself based his philosophy, it is said...

The people must be cherished,
The people must not be oppressed,
The people are the root of the country.
If the root is firm, the country is tranquil.

And you remember, she continued, that, when asked which was most important to a state, food, weapons or the trust of the people, the sage replied that weapons could be given up, and even food be sacrificed, but the state itself would be destroyed if the people had no confidence in it.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“Why should we hate them? Because ours is the only true civilization! Even in science -- consider that we invented the sternpost rudder twelve hundred years before the Europeans did! Fore-and-aft sails in the third century! Treadmill paddle wheel for boats five hundred years later! Warships with rams and twenty paddle wheels by the twelfth century -- the British thought we had copied theirs, the fools! In the thirteenth century we had ships with fifty cabins for passengers, six-masts, double planking, water-tight compartments! Only in the last century did the barbarians even have transverse bulkheads! Five hundred years ago we already had ships four hundred and fifty feet long, and we grew fresh vegetables aboard in tubs! WE sailed the high seas to Sumatra and India, to Aden and Africa and even to Madagascar -- sixty years before the Portuguese bit a piece from the thigh of India! I curse Confucius and all those mad saints who persuaded us against war! Did you ever hear of Sun Wa, who lived three thousand years ago? No? Read the Art of War! 'If you are not in danger, do not fight,' he wrote. Now we are in danger!”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“Fresh tadpoles coming out in the spring should be washed clean in cold well-water, and swallowed whole three or four days after menstruation. If a woman swallows fourteen live tadpoles on the first day and ten more on the following day, she will not conceive for five years. If contraception in still required after that, she can repeat the formula twice and be for ever sterile... This formula is good in that it is effective, safe and not expensive. The defect is that it can be used only in the spring.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“Drive out the tiger by the front gate and let in the wolf by the back gate,...”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“...the relationships between the five elements. What are the five elements? They are wood, fire, earth, metal, water. These create, and also destroy, each other....
On the side of creation, wood creates fire; fire, as ash, creates earth. In earth there is metal: metal melts to become liquid. Water creates trees, or wood. On the side of destruction, wood consumes water through trees; earth can stop water; water destroys fire; fire destroys metal; but metal in an instrument destroys wood....Within this circle of creation and destruction man must live harmoniously, with ebb and flow, in tune with all that exists.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“Families are only a means of exploitation,' he declared. 'Parents treat children as capital assests and children wait for parents to die so that they will have an unearned income.'
'So children spy on fathers,' Mercy put in, 'and sons are sent far from their parents--'
'That the young may not inherit the prejudices of the old.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“In the case of acupuncture, the time period must also be considered. On a fine day, the sun shining, blood in the human body flows smoothly, saliva is free, breathing is easy. On days of chill and cloud, blood flows thick and slow, breathing is heavy, saliva is viscous. When the moon is waxing, blood and breath are full. When the moon wanes, blood and breath wane. Therefore acupuncture should be used only on fair warm days, when the moon is waxing or, best of all, when the moon is full.'
'Interesting,' Grace said in a comment, 'in bioclimatic research in the West, coronary attacks increase in frequency on cold chilly days when the sun is under clouds.'
Dr Tseng turned the page of his blue cloth-covered book. 'Ah, doubtless the barbarians across the four seas have heard of our learning,' he observed without interest.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang

“All scientific effort must now be concentrated in the area of defence (sic). We have learned our lesson. We, the most civilized of people, have been misled by our own sages through the last four thousand years. We are now over-civilized in a world of barbaric peoples. WE were taught centuries ago that war is not the pastime of a civilized people. We stopped the development of explosive weapons a thousand years ago, on the ground that it was inhuman and monstrous to kill innocent people. Let warriors fight with broadswords and kill each other, we said, but others who are innocent must not die by accident. Therefore, though we understood the principles of rocketry, we did not allow it to be used. Even gunpowder was used only in fireworks. We felt secure in our place under heaven, the centre of a protective ring of subject peoples, beyond whose borders we did not penetrate. Who could have imagined that those outer barbarians would themselves develop atomic bombs and rocket weapons and all manner of deadly chemicals?”
― Pearl S. Buck, Three Daughters of Madame Liang