Tao Te Ching
Arthur Waley
1899 – 1969 CE
East to West ambassador, remarkable Chinese and Japanese translator called a "great transmitter of the high literary cultures of China and Japan,” sinologist, and poet in his own right; Waley’s poetic translations based on understanding not just the words but the sense as well, pioneered a new understanding and appreciation of oriental philosophy in the west. His Tao Te Ching translation, The Way and Its Power is one of the best older version translations with clear and insightful commentaries.
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Post-Romantic Age (1850 – 2018 CE)Great Depression (1929 – 1941 CE)
Roaring Twenties (1920 – 1929 CE)
Generations
The Lost Generation (1883 – 1900 CE)Unlisted Sources
Nine songs: a study of shamanism in ancient China (1955)
Quotes by Arthur Waley (7 quotes)
“By admitting the conception of goodness, you are simultaneously creating a conception of badness.”
Chapters:
2. The Wordless Teachings
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“This chapter is a bait for realists.”
Chapters:
3. Weak Wishes, Strong Bones
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“Heaven in our author’s thought is synonymous with Tao. Tao is the absolute, the enduring, the ever-so.”
Chapters:
20. Unconventional Mind
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“The commonest charge brought against Taoists was that of being merely interested in self-perfection without regard for the welfare of the community as a whole. This chapter is devoted to rebutting that charge.”
Chapters:
27. No Trace
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“The ‘speakers of fine words’… were the itinerant sophists and sages who at that time went round from capital to capital, selling their services to the ruler who offered them the highest inducements.”
Chapters:
62. Basic Goodness
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“The prejudice against shamanism went hand in hand with the rise and spread of Confucianism. It was founded, I think, on the saying attributed in more than one place to Confucius that one should 'revere Spirits, but keep them at a distance.'”
from Nine songs: a study of shamanism in ancient China (1955)
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“The shaman's relation with the Spirit is represented as a kind of love-affair. One is, of course, vaguely reminded of temple prostitutes in the Near East, and of devadasi and Krishna's relations with the adoring cow-girls in India.”
from Nine songs: a study of shamanism in ancient China (1955)
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