Ge Hong Quotes

Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to go to his class.

To help others to develop and succeed in life is a reward itself and only has value when nothing is expected in return.

In a time of destruction, create something.

In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.

A story can take you through a whole process of searching, seeking, confronting, through conflicts, and then to a resolution. As the storyteller and the listener, we go through a story together.

When we assist Him in His mission of saving souls, we too will be rescued in the process.

Refrain from reckless and thoughtless actions. Be as calm and judicious as a mountain.

A true Grandmaster is a person who starts the arts at a very young age and continues it until their body will no longer allows it. Then they still contribute mentally to the art.

The work of preservation demands that the feelings playing about in one's guts not be turned into action. Just watch their passing like cherry blossoms.

I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.

To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world--that I am able to change it in positive ways.

We're all under the same sky and walk the same earth; we're alive together during the same moment.

Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people.

Time waits for no man.

Nothing can be comparable to good health

I may be ugly and clumsy, but one thing I'm not, I'm not retarded.

The images of peace are ephemeral. The language of peace is subtle. The reasons for peace, the definitions of peace, the very idea of peace have to be invented, and invented again

Hunger also changes the world - when eating can't be a habit, then neither can seeing.

There is much meaning in the word endure. For example, when dealing with unstable human feelings and uneven pathways in life, without endurance to hold you up, you may fall into a pit in the brush.

If those who give are conscious of their own generosity and those who receive feel indebted, they are no longer family but rather strangers doing business.

Before we can leave our parents, they stuff our heads like the suitcases which they jam-pack with homemade underwear.

Those who have come to an impasse should examine their original intentions; those who have succeeded should note where they are heading.

Not many women got to live out the daydream of women—to have a room, even a section of a room, that only gets messed up when she messes it up herself.

The difference between mad people and sane people... is that sane people have variety when they talk-story. Mad people have only one story that they talk over and over.

How unlike a dead fish a live fish is.

Joy and life exist nowhere but the present.

Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their feet bound

To notice people's deceptions yet not reveal it in words, to bear people's insults without showing any change of attitude-there is endless meaning in this, and also endless function.

When your mind is empty of prejudices you can see the Tao. When your heart is empty of desires you can follow the Tao.

Humans are basically good. That's why it takes so much training to march march march kill kill kill kill.

If a poor house is well kept, or a poor girl well groomed, there is elegance if not beauty. If good people should come upon hard times, why should they immediately give up on themselves?

Those who seek to become immortals must regard loyalty, filiality, peacefulness, obedience, benevolence and trustworthiness as fundamental.

People reside within qi and qi resides within people. From heaven and earth down to the ten thousand things, each one requires qi to live.

Human affairs are like a chess game. Only those who do not take it seriously can be called good players.

There can't be a pure myth, especially when the myth has been handed down in the oral tradition. As the stories are told, they change. If the stories don't change they just die.

Attention is the mind's feet; if you do not control your attention strictly, it runs into misleading pathways.

Valuing unusual conduct is not as good as being careful about ordinary actions.

I learned to shoot more accurately because my teachers held the targets.

We seem to be always on cusps. Women come out of the burkah, the niqab, purdah, the closet, then go back in again. Of course, what we need do is to value the happy freedom of all beings.

If the mind is illumined, there is clear blue sky in a dark room. If the thoughts are muddled, there are malevolent ghosts in broad daylight.

In dealing with good people one should be magnanimous; in dealing with bad people one should be strict. In dealing with average people one should combine magnanimity and strictness.

Those who live simply are often pure, while those who live luxuriously may be slavish and servile. It seems that the will is clarified by plainness, while conduct is ruined by indulgence.

You must not tell anyone,' my mother said, 'what I am about to tell you.'

Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand pages of prose. Now, I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem.

Fishing is a pleasure of retirement, yet the angler has the power to let the fish live or die.

I've been writing since I was 7, but before that, I was orally making stories.

When the mind is possessed of reality, it feels tranquil and joyous even without music or song, and it produces a pure fragrance even without incense or tea.

The road of truth is broad; set the mind on it, and you feel expansive openness and broad clarity. The road of human desires is narrow; set foot on it, and you see brambles and mire before you.

You should be forgiving when others make mistakes, but not when the mistakes are in you. You should be patient under duress yourself, but not when it affects others.

People who can comfort the dead can also chase after them to hurt them further-a reverse ancestor worship.