Quotes from Pearl S. Buck

Ah, because you have suffered is the one reason why you should never make others suffer," he had said. "Only the small and the mean retaliate for pain.

What is the conscience? It is the most highly developed part of the human being, the core of the spirit, the most sensitive, the most tender.

Americans are citizens from the moment they are born, and not when they become twenty-one years of age. By then, if they have not performed the acts of a citizen in a democracy, it is too late. They remain irresponsible and therefore immature. From the first grade on, the child should be taught his duties as a citizen, and given his voice in municipal matters and then in state and nation.

I wish to produce the fruit of my brain for my country's good. A mere dog may fill the earth with the fruit of his body!

It was not enough that she had never loved him. Love had nothing to do with responsibility.

In a strange and ominous way the fate of women everywhere in the world is linked with the trend toward fascism. To delay might mean to be compelled to silence.

Nothing is destroyed, only changed.

The time had come for him to use a dangerous weapon. "Venerable," he said, "if the Emperor's manhood was destroyed, how is it that he begot a son and one so sturdy as the young Emperor?

And what was worship except trust and hope that life and death had meaning because they were created and planned by Heaven?

many a woman would have let her mind lie idle while she worked in the fields, but I have ever seen this difference between you and other women, that your mind cannot be idle, and I say I never know what is coming out of you. And so I never tire of you, old woman.

if China is not our suzerain!

rulers anywhere are always the first to fly, and the people must stay behind to be steadfast. And the noise of the battle grew more strong, hour by hour.

The lie deceives no one so much as the one who tells it.

It is easy to destroy, but it is hard to create. Do not destroy what your brother creates.

And will you understand me when I say I would fight to keep you free from such beliefs because for you they would be false, and at the same time I would fight to keep my mother in those same beliefs because for her they are true and necessary? She would be lost without them, for by them she has lived and by them she must die. But you and l—we must have our own beliefs to live and die in

Wyeth was perhaps stupid. No, he was not stupid, he was surrounded and isolated by comfort.

and comforted by his greater wisdom he fell asleep again deeply in the darkness and the stillness.

island of Komudo

she returned full of talk about the streets, wondering at sights which others would not notice and seeing beauty in strange places.

She shook her head. "I don't know one pretty young man from the other," she declared.

They were young no more, their passion spent unused, but the memory of love remained eternal. Indeed, her mellowed heart was more tender now than ever toward him and there was nothing left that she could not forgive him.

Yuan could not for his life say, "This man is rich and evil, and this man is poor and good," and so he was spoiled for any cause-making, however great the cause.

Questo è il motivo per cui mi sono tagliata i capelli. Volevo venderli per comperarmi un libro. Allora avevo paura di dirtelo, ecco perché ti parlai di orecchini. Ma è un libro, che voglio.

Like most garden lovers, he could never enjoy the perfection of the garden as much as he wished, because his overzealous eye saw always some imperfection, too minute to be noticed by a stranger.