Pearl S. Buck

1892-1973
American novelist, American novelist, humanitarian

Pearl S. Buck quotes:

To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.

Once the "what" is decided, the "how" always follows. We must not make the "how" an excuse for not facing and accepting the "what."

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

..a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.

To him...
a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,
and failure is death.

There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream - whatever that dream might be.

     Only the brave should teach. Only those who love the young should teach. Teaching is a vocation. It is as sacred as priesthood; as innate as desire, as inescapable as the genius which compels a great artist.
     If he has not the concern for humanity, the love of living creatures, the vision of the priest and the artist: he must not teach.

All things are possible until they are proved impossible - and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation.

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.

Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.

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Image source: Department of English, University of Pennsylvania