1,113 Quotes About China

- "Tanques contra personas", respondería tal vez. Parece un enfrentamiento desigual y lo es. Siempre terminan ganando las personas, aunque a veces lleve mucho tiempo darse cuenta

There were endless stories locked into the silent, cool mass of the Wall, so many memories of stories of so long ago, now only to be imagined. What an incredible feat of human imagination and engineering. A real tribute to visionary and tenacious (if tyrannical) leaders who held a nation together with a common goal, from dynasty to dynasty over the many centuries.

Perhaps the most overpowering contrast [with the West] is the virtual absence in premodern China of the idea of a transcendent creator God who is distinct from Nature in a fundamental qualitative sense. The Chinese had notions of a supreme god in various guises (that is, ‘hypatotheism’), and also, as we have seen, of a somewhat demiurge-like ‘transformer’ constantly reshaping the cosmos.

The faces of the people were wrinkled with change. Sudden change to which the skin can't possibly conform, faster than the aging of man, faster, even, than their wildest dreams. It stretched their skin thin, as did their bulging bellies, their newfound love of doughnuts, hamburgers, milk and cheese. What was once a once-a-year privilege could now be bought in twelve shops on the same street.

Walking on water is easy if you know where to step.

Large portraits of Mao on wooden boards several feet high stood at main street corners. Painted to make the old man look extremely youthful, healthy, and fat (a sign of well-being in China), these pictures provided a mocking contrast to the thin, pale-faced pedestrians walking listlessly below them.

As I gazed at Mao’s face wearing what was intended as a benign expression but was in fact a smirk of self-satisfaction, I wondered how one single person could have caused the extent of misery that was prevailing in China. There must be something lacking in our own character, I thought, that had made it possible for his evil genius to dominate.

I have come to believe that coming true is not the only purpose of a dream; it's most important purpose is to get us in touch with where dreams come from, where passion comes from, where happiness comes from. Even a shattered dream can do that for you.

As I stood in the room looking at it for the last time, I felt again the cold metal of the handcuffs on my wrists and remembered the physical suffering and mental anguish I had endured while fighting with all the willpower and intellect God had given me for that rare and elusive thing in a Communist country called justice.