Hu Shih Quotes & Sayings

“India Conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.”

“Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.”

“It is only through contact and comparison that the relative value or worthlessness of the various cultural elements can be clearly and critically seen and understood.”

“And revolutions always mean the breakdown of old authority.”

“What is sacred among one people may be ridiculous in another; and what is despised or rejected by one cultural group, may in a different environment become the cornerstone for a great edifice of strange grandeur and beauty.”

“Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.”

“On the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death or decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or worse, lives on in the immortality of The Larger.”

“On July 26, 1916, I announced to all my friends in America that from now on I resolved to write no more poems in the classical language, and to begin my experiments in writing poetry in the so-called vulgar tongue of the people.”

“After learning the language and culture of the Chinese people, these Jesuits began to establish contacts with the young intellectuals of the country.”

“Historically, there had been many periods of Chinese Renaissance.”