Quotessence
Home / Authors / Michael Puett Biography

Michael Puett Biography

Author

Related Quotes

“You can dam and direct the water, and you can force it to remain on the top of a mountain without flowing down. But is this what water's nature really is? It is what you have done to it that makes it so. Humans can also be made to be not good in the same way. " - Mencius”

LifeGoodnessThe PathMenciusChines PhilosophyGoodness Of Humankind
Book:The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
Create image

“Living in a capricious world means accepting that we do not live within a stable moral cosmos that will always reward people for what they do. We should not deny that real tragedies happen. But at the same time, we should always expect to be surprised and learn to work with whatever befalls us. If we continue this work, even when tragedies come our way, we can begin to accept the world as unpredictable and impossible to understand perfectly. And this is where the promise of a capricious world lies; if our world is indeed constantly fragmented and unpredicatable, then it is something we can constantly work on bettering. We can go into each situation resolved to be the best human being we can be, not because of what we'll get our of it, but simply to affect others around us for the better, regardless of the outcome. We can cultivate our better sides and face this unpredicatble world, transforming as we go.”

WorldPhilosophyLivingTransformingChinese PhilosophyTransforming LivesTransforming The WorldMencius
Book:The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
Create image