Yan Yuan Quotes
Yan Yuan, known as Yan Xizhai, was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the early Qing dynasty and a sharp critic of the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucian establishment of his time. He held that the long emphasis on quiet meditation and book learning had drained the Confucian tradition of its original practical orientation, and called for a return to the six classical arts of ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and arithmetic as the proper substance of Confucian education. The quotes below are attributed to Yan Yuan, organized by topic.
Yan Yuan on Knowledge
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Attributed to Yan Yuan:
“Books are servants of practice; when they take the place of practice, they have ceased to be books in any useful sense.”
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Attributed to Yan Yuan:
“What we cannot do, we cannot rightly understand.”
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Attributed to Yan Yuan:
“Cheng-Zhu Confucianism has emptied the school in the name of preserving it.”
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Attributed to Yan Yuan:
“The sage Confucius taught archery before he taught metaphysics; we should learn from his order.”
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“China's censorship is not as rigorous as everyone thinks. The self-censorship of the authors is much worse.”
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“Reality is much more absurd and complex than any fiction.”
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Yan Yuan on Mind
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“I used to assume history and memory would always triumph over temporary aberrations and return to their rightful place. It now appears the opposite is true.”
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“Anything negative about the country or the regime will be rapidly erased from the collective memory. This memory deletion is being carried out by censoring newspapers, magazines, television news, the Internet and anything that preserves memories.”
Wikiquote
Yan Yuan on Time
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“Yet, just as in any kindergarten, there are always a few naughty children who don't like to be told what to do. There are always some people who refuse to be administered amnesia. They are always trying to speak in their own words, always spreading their creative wings to fly beyond the boundaries of official memory. Following their conscience, they are willing to fly anywhere, into the past, the present or the future, in order to produce works that can pass our memories onto younger generations.”
Wikiquote
Yan Yuan on Virtue
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Attributed to Yan Yuan:
“Sitting in quiet meditation is not yet the work of a Confucian; the work is in the practice of the six arts.”