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Tao Yuanming Quotes

China

Tao Yuanming (Chinese: 陶渊明) (365–427), also known as T'ao Ch'ien, was a Chinese poet.

China
Poets

Also known as: Tao Qian, T'ao Ch'ien

Random Tao Yuanming quote

16 quotes

God can only set in motion:
He cannot control the things he has made.

At a single glance I survey the whole Universe.
He will never be happy, whom such pleasures fail to please!

I would gladly wander in Paradise,
But it is far away and there is no road.

I beg you listen to this advice —
When you get wine, be sure to drink it.

The pure air
is cleansed of lingering lees
And mysteriously,
Heaven's realms are high.

While picking asters 'neath the Eastern fence,
My gaze upon the Southern mountain rests.

I wish to speak but lips can shape no voice,
I wish to see but light has left my eye.

In former days I wanted wine to drink;
The wine this morning fills the cup in vain.

Let me then remember, to calm my heart's distress,
That the Sages of old were often in like case.

Let us drink and enjoy together the wine you have brought:
For my course is set and cannot now be altered.

Longingly—I think of my friends,
But neither boat nor carriage comes.

Amidst wild weeds to rest I now descend.
When once I pass beyond the city gate
I shall return to darkness without end.

I am free from ties and can live a life of retirement.
When I rise from sleep, I play with books and harp.

My little children are playing at my side,
Learning to talk, they babble unformed sounds.
These things have made me happy again
And I forget my lost cap of office.
Distant, distant I gaze at the white clouds:
With a deep yearning I think of the Sages of Antiquity.

That when the body decays Fame should also go
Is a thought unendurable, burning the heart.
Let us strive and labour while yet we may
To do some deed that men will praise.

You had better go where Fate leads—
Drift on the Stream of Infinite Flux,
Without joy, without fear:
When you must go—then go.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Tao Yuanming (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.