To pursue it is to be human, to give it up is to be a beast.

← Back to quotes

Philosophical literature

To pursue it is to be human, to give it up is to be a beast.

Xunxi

250 BC

★ 1.3

Other tags relating to this quote

Topic

Education Self-improvement

Genre

Philosophical literature

Time

250 BC Ancient World

Person

Xunxi

Provenance

Current citation

Xunzi. Xunzi: The Complete Text, translated by Eric L. Hutton. Princeton University Press, 2014, ch. 1.

Original citation

Xunzi. Xunzi. c. 238 BC.

Related quotes

Other quotes that share a subject, a time, or a voice with this one.

We learn an art or craft by doing the things that we shall have to do when we have learnt it.

Aristotle

The Nicomachean Ethics · 322 BC

Another quote aboutTopic·Self-improvement

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

Marcus Aurelius

Meditations · 180

Another quote aboutTopic·Self-improvement

Behold! human beings living in an underground den... Like ourselves... They see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave.

Socrates

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

Another quote aboutTopic·Education

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom · 1994

Another quote aboutTopic·Education

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao Tzu

Tao Te Ching · 400 BC

Another quote fromEra·Ancient World

Other media

Works in other forms that share a subject with this one.

Other media onSubject·Education

Book · 1872

Middlemarch

George Eliot

Song · 1979

Another Brick in the Wall Part 2

Pink Floyd

Book · 1762

Emile, Or On Education

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To pursue it is to be human, to give it up is to be a beast. — Xunxi

Related quotes

Other media