Pearl S. Buck Quotes (57 Quotes)


    And listening to all the things they would do if they had these things, Wang Lung heard only of how much they would eat and sleep, and of what dainties they would eat that they had never tasted,and how they would gamble in this great tea shop and in that, and what pretty women they would buy for their lust, and above all, how none would ever work again, even as they rich man behind the wall never worked.

    He saw on the paper a picture of a man, white-skinned, who hung upon a crosspiece of wood. The man was without clothes except for a bit about his loins, and to all appearences he was dead, since his head drooped upon his shoulder and his eyes were closed above his bearded lips. Wang Lung looked at the pictured man in horror and with increasing interest.

    I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within reach of everybody.


    If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.


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

    Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.

    None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

    Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.

    When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.

    We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won't let them into our country.

    Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then; life is dull without it.


    To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.


    To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.

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

    Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.

    The bitterest creature under heaven is the wife who discovers that her husband's bravery is only bravado, that his strength is only a uniform, that his power is but a gun in the hands of a fool.

    To know what one can have and to do with it, being prepared for no more, is the basis of equilibrium.

    Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.


    We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave.

    No one really understood music unless he was a scientist, her father had declared, and not just a scientist, either, oh, no, only the real ones, the theoreticians, whose language was mathematics. She had not understood mathematics until he had explained to her that it was the symbolic language of relationships. 'And relationships,' he had told her, 'contained the essential meaning of life.'

    All things are possible until they are proved impossible - and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.


    Chinese are wise in comprehending without many words what is inevitable and inescapable and therefore only to be borne.

    If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.

    Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors.

    Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.

    The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

    Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.

    You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.

    A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.

    It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.

    Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession.

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

    A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.

    When men destroy their old gods they will find new ones to take their place.

    At my age the bones are water in the morning until food is given them.

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

    Nothing in life is as good as the marriage of true minds between man and woman. As good? It is life itself.


    A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated and turned out to grass.



    A woman's mind is not an instrument apart from her other being. She does not separate herself as man does, now flesh, now mind, now heart. She is there as one, a unity complete and unified.

    Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

    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.

    You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.


    More Pearl S. Buck Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Life - Woman - Work & Career - Heaven - Love - Youth - Death & Dying - Mind - Books - Relationship - Angels - People - Truth - Hope - Marriage - World - Joy & Excitement - Place - View All Pearl S. Buck Quotations

    More Pearl S. Buck Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - The Good Earth

    Related Authors


    P. D. James - Nathaniel Hawthorne - Naguib Mahfouz - James Clavell - J. D. Salinger - Fyodor Dostoevsky - Erich Segal - Boris Pasternak - Arthur Koestler - Anne Bronte


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