China and the West

Thoreau, Henry David. A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers [ID D29691].
The Chinese are bribed to carry their ova from province to province in jars or in hollow reeds, or the water-birds to transport them to the mountain tarns and interior lakes.
The reading which I love best is the scriptures of the several nations, though it happens that I am better acquainted with those of the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I have come to last.
But is it necessary to know what the speculator prints, or the thoughtless study, or the idle read, the literature of the Russians and the Chinese, or even French philosophy and much of German criticism.
"Assuredly", says a French translator, speaking of the antiquity and durability of the Chinese and Indian nations, and of the wisdom of their legislators, "there are there some vestiges of the eternal laws which govern the world."
It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture of mankind.
They appeared to be green hands from far among the hills, who had taken this means to get to the seabord, and see the world ; and would possibly visit the Falkland Isles, and the China seas, before they again saw the waters of the Merrimack, or perchance, not return this way forever.

[Gedicht]
Though all the fates should prove unkind,
Leave not your native land behind.
The ship, becalmed, at length stands still;
The steed must rest beneath the hill;
But swiftly still our fortunes pace
To find us out in every place.
The vessel, though her masts be firm,
Beneath her copper bears a worm;
Around the cape, across the line,
Till fields of ice her course confine;
It matters not how smooth the breeze,
How shallow or how deep the seas,
Whether she bears Manilla twine,
Or in her hold Madeira wine,
Or China teas, or Spanish hides,
In port or quarantine she rides;
Far from New England's blustering shore,
New England's worm her hulk shall bore,
And sink her in the Indian seas,
Twine, wine, and hides, and China teas.

The periods of Hindoo and Chinese history, though they reach back of the time when the race of mortals is confounded with the race of gods, are as nothing compared with the periods which these stones have inscribed.
Nevertheless, we will go on, like those Chinese cliffs swallows, feathering our nests with the froth which may one day be bread of life to such as dwell by the seashore.
Pneumatologists, Atheists, Theists, - Plato, Aristotle, Leucippus, Democritus, Pythagorus, Zoroaster, and Confucius.
Confucius said, "Never contract Friendship with a man that is not better than thyself. "
Confucius said, "To contract ties of Friendship, with any one, is to contract Friendship with his virtue."
"They Say That Lieou-Hia-Hoei and Chao-Lien did not sustain to the end their resolutions, and that they dishonored their character. Their language was in harmony with reason and justice; while their acts were on harmony with the sentiments of men." [Confucius, Analects].
Mencius says : "If one loses a fowl or a dog, he knows well how to seek them again ; if one loses the sentiments of his heart, he does not know how to seek them again… The duties of practical philosophy consist only in seeking after those sentiments of the heart which we have lost ; that is all."