Wang Yangming Quotes
Wang Yangming was a 15th and early 16th-century Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher, statesman, and military general of the Ming dynasty, the most influential Confucian thinker of the late imperial era. Against the dominant Cheng-Zhu interpretation of Confucianism, which emphasised the investigation of external things, he developed an idealist Confucianism centred on the doctrines of innate moral knowledge and the unity of knowledge and action. The quotes below are attributed to Wang Yangming, organized by topic.
Wang Yangming on Knowledge
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Attributed to Wang Yangming:
“Knowing and acting are one.”
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Attributed to Wang Yangming:
“If you know without doing, your knowledge is incomplete.”
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Attributed to Wang Yangming:
“To extend one's intuitive knowledge to the utmost is the great rule.”
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Attributed to Wang Yangming:
“All learning is a process of self-discovery.”
Wang Yangming on Mind
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Attributed to Wang Yangming:
“The mind is the principle.”
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Attributed to Wang Yangming:
“There are no flowers and trees outside the mind.”
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Attributed to Wang Yangming:
“When the mind is rectified, the body becomes correct.”