409 Quotes by Pearl S. Buck

People don’t care to read what they already think or what any people think – they know all that well enough. They want to know what they ought to think.

You see how loving kindness conquers fear, even in animals. Let this lesson be engraved upon your hearts.

Long ago she had learned that to seem to yield is always stronger than to show resistance, and to acknowledge a fault quickly is always to show an invincible rectitude.

For the soul of man is born fresh in every child, and there is an age in every creature, unless he is debased too young, when for a time he sees clearly the difference between truth and falsehood, and hypocrisy infuriates him. He cannot forgive those who should be true and instead are liars. This fury, I believe, is the first cause for revolutions throughout history.

It is better not to say “lend.” There is only giving.

We must save ourselves by doing what is godlike and we will become godlike.

It was the secret of her power in this house that she never allowed her will to be felt as absolute. She gave time and the promise of an end, and then she used the time to shape events to her own end.

This is I. I am as you see me. I do not care to be otherwise.

For this Mary’s words were not surcharged with oversubtle meaning. No, she spoke them out swiftly and with sharp clearness and each word had its own weight and meaning and no more, good tools of her mind, but not messengers of vague suggestion.