Quotes from Pearl S. Buck

Cómo podían conocer los médicos extranjeros las enfermedades de una mujer china? Quizá entiendan las enfermedades de los bárbaros, pero no las de los refinados y cultos chinos...

The fruit of her life is her grandson who is not yet born.

Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.

This seems right to them today and that tomorrow and they do not know that one man's mind cannot say what is the true right for another. No, in their pride of a little learning they rush out to do evil

Books he would always learn from, for people, great people, put the best of themselves into books. Books were a distillation of people. But people would be his teachers, and people were not in schoolrooms. People were everywhere.

How can school help you with the land? he asked. An old grandfather leaned out of the shadows to make answer. Learning clears the mind, he said, and books open the spirit of man to heaven and to the earth. Do you know how to read? Il-han asked. The old man touched his wrinkled eyelids. These two eyes can see only the surface of what life is.

the doctrine of isolationism and

Yes, their ancients had taught them that no good man would be a soldier and that the warlike man was the least of men and not to be respected, and so they had all believed.

Once the 'what' is decided, the 'how' always follows. We must not make the 'how' an excuse for not facing and accepting the 'what.'

In this unbelievable universe in which we live there are no absolutes. Even parallel lines reaching into infinity meet somewhere yonder.

When we know what we want to prove we go out and find our facts. They are always there.

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.

It is difficult not to wonder whether that combination of elements which produces a machine for labor does not create also a soul of sorts, a dull resentful metallic will, which can rebel at times.

Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.

Endurance of inescapable sorrow is something which has to be learned alone. And only to endure is not enough. Endurance can be a harsh and bitter root in one's life, bearing poisonous and gloomy fruit, destroying other lives. Endurance is only the beginning. There must be acceptance and the knowledge that sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.

I believe that the normal human heart is born good. That is, it's born sensitive and feeling, eager to be approved and to approve, hungry for simple happiness and the chance to live. It neither wishes to be killed, nor to kill. If through circumstances, it is overcome by evil, it never becomes entirely evil. There remain in it elements of good, however recessive, which continue to hold the possibility of restoration.

The basic discovery about any people is the discovery of the relationship between men and women.

Love alone could waken love.

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible — and achieve it, generation after generation.

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels.