Tan Sitong Quotes
Tan Sitong was a late-Qing Chinese reformer and philosopher, one of the Six Gentlemen executed after the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898. In his major work A Study of Benevolence (Renxue), composed in the last years of his short life, he reinterpreted the Confucian virtue of ren as a universal force comparable to the ether of contemporary physics, and argued that breaking the bonds of authoritarian custom between ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, was the highest expression of benevolence. The quotes below are attributed to Tan Sitong, organized by topic.
Tan Sitong on Freedom
-
Attributed to Tan Sitong:
“If reform demands a death, let mine be that death.”
-
Attributed to Tan Sitong:
“The bonds of subject to ruler, of son to father, of wife to husband, are the chains that benevolence demands we break.”
-
Attributed to Tan Sitong:
“I have not yet found my freedom; perhaps my death will help others find theirs.”
Tan Sitong on Love
-
Attributed to Tan Sitong:
“Benevolence pervades the cosmos and joins all things, like the ether of the physicists.”
Tan Sitong on Politics
-
Attributed to Tan Sitong:
“Each country requires the blood of reformers; without it, no awakening is possible.”