Pearl S. Buck

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.
– Pearl S. Buck

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.
– Pearl S. Buck

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
– Pearl S. Buck

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.
– Pearl S. Buck

I love people. I love my family, my children… but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.
– Pearl S. Buck

The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.
– Pearl S. Buck

Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman.
– Pearl S. Buck

Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought.
– Pearl S. Buck

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.
– Pearl S. Buck

If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.
– Pearl S. Buck

Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.
– Pearl S. Buck

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.
– Pearl S. Buck

Can such stiff and formal moldings as words capture the spirit-essence of love?
– Pearl S. Buck

We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won’t let them into our country.
– Pearl S. Buck

To know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe.
– Pearl S. Buck

It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.
– Pearl S. Buck

When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.
– Pearl S. Buck

Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.
– Pearl S. Buck

There is one word that can be the guide for your life – it is the word reciprocity.
– Pearl S. Buck

Somehow I had learned from Thoreau, who doubtless learned it from Confucius, that if a man comes to do his own good for you, then must you flee that man and save yourself.
– Pearl S. Buck

Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmitted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.
– Pearl S. Buck

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.
– Pearl S. Buck

I have enough for this life. If there is no other life, then this one has been enough to make it worth being born, myself a human being.
– Pearl S. Buck

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.
– Pearl S. Buck

Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.
– Pearl S. Buck

One faces the future with one’s past.
– Pearl S. Buck

I am comforted by life’s stability, by earth’s unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.
– Pearl S. Buck

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

Order is the shape upon which beauty depends.
– Pearl S. Buck

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.
– Pearl S. Buck

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.
– Pearl S. Buck

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.
– Pearl S. Buck

All things are possible until they are proved impossible. And even the impossible may only be so, as of now.
– Pearl S. Buck

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.
– Pearl S. Buck

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.
– Pearl S. Buck

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.
– Pearl S. Buck

Nothing is menial where there is love.
– Pearl S. Buck

To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.
– Pearl S. Buck

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something is to enjoy it.
– Pearl S. Buck

I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within reach of everybody.
– Pearl S. Buck

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.
– Pearl S. Buck

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.
– Pearl S. Buck

The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members.
– Pearl S. Buck

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
– Pearl S. Buck