Arthur Waley Quotes

Arthur David Waley was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were the CBE in 1952, the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1953, and he was invested as a Companion of Honour in 1956.Although highly learned, Waley avoided academic posts and most often wrote for a general audience. He chose not to be a specialist but to translate a wide and personal range of classical literature. Starting in the 1910s and continuing steadily almost until his death in 1966, these translations started with poetry, such as A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems and Japanese Poetry: The Uta , then an equally wide range of novels, such as The Tale of Genji , an 11th-century Japanese work, and Monkey, from 16th-century China. Waley also presented and translated Chinese philosophy, wrote biographies of literary figures, and maintained a lifelong interest in both Asian and Western paintings.

A recent evaluation called Waley "the great transmitter of the high literary cultures of China and Japan to the English-reading general public; the ambassador from East to West in the first half of the 20th century", and went on to say that he was "self-taught, but reached remarkable levels of fluency, even erudition, in both languages. It was a unique achievement, possible only in that time, and unlikely to be repeated." Wikipedia  

✵ 19. August 1889 – 27. June 1966
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Famous Arthur Waley Quotes

“Anyone with a good classical education could learn Chinese by himself without difficulty.”

1968 remark, quoted in Japan Quarterly, Vol. XVIII, No. 1 (January-March 1971), p. 107

“You that in far-off countries of the sky can dwell secure, look back upon me here; for I am weary of this frail world's decay.”

Source: Translations, The Tale of Genji (1925–1933), Ch. 40: 'The Law'

Arthur Waley Quotes

“Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.”

Source: Translations, The Tale of Genji (1925–1933), Ch. 1: 'Kiritsubo'

“It is in general the unexplored that attracts us.”

Source: Translations, The Tale of Genji (1925–1933), Ch. 9: 'Aoi'

“A team of horses cannot overtake a word that has left the mouth.”

Source: Translations, Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942), Ch. 27 (p. 266)

“Though the snow-drifts of Yoshino were heaped across his path, doubt not that whither his heart is set, his footsteps shall tread out their way.”

Source: Translations, The Tale of Genji (1925–1933), Ch. 19: 'A Wreath of Cloud'

“Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.”

Source: Translations, The Tale of Genji (1925–1933), Ch. 1: 'Kiritsubo'

“Nothing in the world is difficult,' said the Patriarch, 'it is only our own thoughts that make things seem so.”

Source: Translations, Monkey: Folk Novel of China (1942), Ch. 2 (p. 26)

“I would rather be dead.”

Response when offered the Chair in Chinese at Cambridge, as quoted in Orientalism and the Operatic World (2015) by Nicholas Tarling, p. 78

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