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.

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.

When you talk with famous scholars, the best thing is to pretend that occasionally you do not quite understand them. If you understand too little, you will be despised; if you understand too much, you will be disliked; if you just fail occasionally to understand them, you will suit each other very well.

But anyone who thinks themselves genuinely unbiased is bound to be taken in.

Hope is like a path in the countryside.

I entreat fresh visions from the painters. Be lavish with your vermilion to portray the mountains in the spring.

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.