Lu Xun Quotes
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I thought: hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.
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As long as there shall be stones, the seeds of fire will not die.
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If we want to work out a policy for the present, we must examine the past and prepare for the future, discard the material and elevate the spirit, rely on the individual and exclude the mass.
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The most painful thing in life is to wake up from a dream and find no way out. Dreamers are fortunate people. If no way out can be seen, the important thing is not to awaken the sleepers.
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Discontent is the wheel that moves people forward.
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I naturally believe there will be a future, but I do not waste my time imagining its radiant beauty. ... It seems to me that we ought to think first about the present. Even if the present is desperately dark, I do not wish to leave it. Will tomorrow be free from darkness? We'll talk about that tomorrow.
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The most important thing... was to change their spirit; and since at that time I felt that literature was the best means to this end, I decided to promote literary movement.
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Hope is like a path in the countryside. Originally, there is nothing - but as people walk this way again and again, a path appears.
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If men refuse to be kindled, sparks can only burn themselves out, just as paper images and carriages burn out on the street during funerals.
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But anyone who thinks themselves genuinely unbiased is bound to be taken in.
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I felt that if a man's proposals met with approval, it should encourage him; if they met with opposition, it should make him fight back; but the real tragedy for him was to lift up his voice among the living and meet with no response neither approval nor opposition just as if he were left helpless in a boundless desert.
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Let those who hanker after the past return to the past! Let those who want to leave the world leave the world! Let those who want to ascend to heaven do so! Let those whose souls want to leave their bodies expire quickly! The earth today should be inhabited by man with a firm hold on the present, a firm hold on the earth.
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Though love is instinctive, it cannot develop without a certain stimulus and use.
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Whoever thinks he is objective must already be half drunk.
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The ability to forget the past enables people to free themselves gradually from the pain they once suffered; but it also often makes them repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.
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A woman has so many parts to her body, life is very hard indeed.
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Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.
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Why should young people look for guides who hang out gided placards to advertise themselves? They would do better to look for friends, unite with them, and advance together towards some quarter where it seems possible to survive.
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Hope is a path on the mountainside. At first there is no path. But then there are people passing that way. And there is a path.
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Like students going to school, the planes on their bombing missions fly over Beijing each morning. And each time I hear their engines attack the air I feel a certain slight tension, as if I were witnessing the invasion of Death, though this heightens my consciousness of the existence of Life.
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You have to reform yourself before reforming society and the world.
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Despair is as hollow and deceptive as hope!
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All who have read a few old books have picked up the old tactics of considering every new idea a 'heresy' which must be rooted out.
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True fighters dare face the sorrows of humanity, and look unflinchingly at bloodshed. What sorrow and joy are theirs! But the Creator's common device for ordinary people is to let the passage of time wash away old traces leaving only pale-red bloodstains and a vague pain; and he lets men live on ignobly and amid these, to keep this quasi-human world going.
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Men who have not known the horror of death are not likely to be awed by it.
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When the Chinese suspect someone of being a potential troublemaker, they always resort to one of two methods: they crush him, or they hoist him on a pedestal.
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Since someone ate crabs, others must have eaten spiders as well. However, they were not tasty. So afterwards, people stopped eating them. These people also deserve our heartfelt gratitude.
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Creation, even when it is a mere outpouring from the heart, wishes to find a public. By definition, creation is sociable. Yet it can be satisfied with merely one single reader: an old friend, a lover.
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To protect myself from the rear, I have to stand slantwise.
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Where are now the warriors of the world of the spirit? Where are those who raise their voices for truth, who lead us to goodness, beauty, strength and health? Where are those who utter heartwarming words, who will lead us out of the wilderness? Our homes are gone and the nation is destroyed, yet we have no Jeremiah crying out his last sad song to the world and to posterity.
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