Kang Youwei Quotes
Kang Youwei was a late-Qing Chinese scholar, reformer, and political philosopher who reimagined Confucianism as a modern civil religion and engine of political transformation. His Confucius as a Reformer cast Confucius in the image of a constitutional reformer rather than a transmitter of antiquity, providing the doctrinal basis for the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898 in which Kang served as the Guangxu Emperor's chief intellectual advisor. The quotes below are attributed to Kang Youwei, organized by topic.
Kang Youwei on Politics
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Attributed to Kang Youwei:
“Confucius was a reformer, not merely a transmitter.”
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Attributed to Kang Youwei:
“All sufferings of humanity arise from the boundaries we draw between states, between classes, between the sexes.”
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Attributed to Kang Youwei:
“The age of Great Unity is no dream; it is the destination toward which history moves.”
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Attributed to Kang Youwei:
“A nation that cannot change cannot endure.”
Kang Youwei on Truth
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Attributed to Kang Youwei:
“To preserve the Way, we must reform its forms.”