Lu Xun Quotations

Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.

To be suspicious is not a fault. To be suspicious all the time without coming to a conclusion is the defect.

True, we must dare look things in the face before we dare think, speak, act, or assume responsibility. If we dare not even look, what else are we good for?

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

But a people unable to reform will not be able to preserve its old culture either.

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.

Where are now the warriors of the world of the spirit? Where are those who raise their voices for truth, who lead us to goodness, beauty, strength and health? Where are those who utter heartwarming words, who will lead us out of the wilderness? Our homes are gone and the nation is destroyed, yet we have no Jeremiah crying out his last sad song to the world and to posterity.

I naturally believe there will be a future, but I do not waste my time imagining its radiant beauty. ... It seems to me that we ought to think first about the present. Even if the present is desperately dark, I do not wish to leave it. Will tomorrow be free from darkness? We'll talk about that tomorrow.

When a great man has become petrified, and everyone begins to proclaim his greatness, he has already turned into a puppet.

The world is changing from day to day; it is high time for our writers to take off their masks, look frankly, keenly, and boldly at life, and write about real flesh and blood. It is high time for a brand-new arena for literature, high time for some bold fighters to charge headlong into battle!

If there are still men who really want to live in this world, they should first dare to speak out, to laugh, to cry, to be angry, to accuse, to fight-that they may at least cleanse this accursed place of its accursed atmosphere!

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.

Creation, even when it is a mere outpouring from the heart, wishes to find a public. By definition, creation is sociable. Yet it can be satisfied with merely one single reader: an old friend, a lover.

Imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation. But you know since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a good turn?

But if a few awake, you can't say there is no hope of destroying the iron house.

I could not blot out hope, for hope belongs to the future.

True fighters dare face the sorrows of humanity, and look unflinchingly at bloodshed. What sorrow and joy are theirs! But the Creator's common device for ordinary people is to let the passage of time wash away old traces leaving only pale-red bloodstains and a vague pain; and he lets men live on ignobly and amid these, to keep this quasi-human world going.

Despair is as hollow and deceptive as hope!

Though love is instinctive, it cannot develop without a certain stimulus and use.

In China, especially in the cities, if someone fainted on the streets, or if someone was knocked over by a car, you'll find lots of gawkers and gloaters, but rarely will you find someone willing to extend a helping hand.

When the Chinese suspect someone of being a potential troublemaker, they always resort to one of two methods: they crush him, or they hoist him on a pedestal.

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.

Women have a mother-nature and a daughter-nature; there are no women with a wife-nature. The quality of wife is an acquired character; it is a combination of mother and daughter.

Revolution is a bitter thing, mixed with filth and blood, not as lovely or perfect as the poets think. It is eminently down to earth, involving many humble, tiresome tasks, not so romantic as the poets think... . So it is easy for all who have romantic dreams about revolution to become disillusioned on closer acquaintance, when a revolution is actually carried out.

A woman has so many parts to her body, life is very hard indeed.

It is in the nature of things that some people should be unlucky enough to get their heads chopped off.

If men refuse to be kindled, sparks can only burn themselves out, just as paper images and carriages burn out on the street during funerals.

Hope is like a path in the countryside...

Like students going to school, the planes on their bombing missions fly over Beijing each morning. And each time I hear their engines attack the air I feel a certain slight tension, as if I were witnessing the invasion of Death, though this heightens my consciousness of the existence of Life.

Trust only him who doubts.

Though science has given us many marvels, it has also spoiled many of our pleasant dreams.

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.

Whoever thinks he is objective must already be half drunk.

Why should young people look for guides who hang out gided placards to advertise themselves? They would do better to look for friends, unite with them, and advance together towards some quarter where it seems possible to survive.

Hope is a path on the mountainside. At first there is no path. But then there are people passing that way. And there is a path.

I felt that if a man's proposals met with approval, it should encourage him; if they met with opposition, it should make him fight back; but the real tragedy for him was to lift up his voice among the living and meet with no response neither approval nor opposition just as if he were left helpless in a boundless desert.

I thought: hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.

Men who have not known the horror of death are not likely to be awed by it.

Discontent is the wheel that moves people forward.

As long as there shall be stones, the seeds of fire will not die.

The most painful thing in life is to wake up from a dream and find no way out. Dreamers are fortunate people. If no way out can be seen, the important thing is not to awaken the sleepers.

To protect myself from the rear, I have to stand slantwise.

You have to reform yourself before reforming society and the world.

The ability to forget the past enables people to free themselves gradually from the pain they once suffered; but it also often makes them repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.

The most important thing... was to change their spirit; and since at that time I felt that literature was the best means to this end, I decided to promote literary movement.

Hope is like a path in the countryside. Originally, there is nothing - but as people walk this way again and again, a path appears.

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

The most horrible thing is not a government that stages public executions, but a government that secretly disposes of its victims.

I have a dream that I will fulfill. And nothing else will distract me from my path.

Since someone ate crabs, others must have eaten spiders as well. However, they were not tasty. So afterwards, people stopped eating them. These people also deserve our heartfelt gratitude.

Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.