The way of the sage is sufficient in my own nature. It was an error to seek principle in external things.
聖人之道、吾性自足、向之求理於事物者誤也。
Philosophers
Wang Yangming
Born in 1472 in Zhejiang during China's Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming was a Confucian scholar and military strategist. He overturned the orthodox Neo-Confucian doctrine of 'first knowledge, then action' with his thesis that knowledge and action are inseparable — the 'unity of knowing and acting.' His school of thought, Yangming studies, influenced Japanese reformers from Oshio Heihachiro to Yoshida Shoin.
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Wang Yangming's Other Quotes
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The mind itself is principle.
-- Wang Yangming
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