Not happy with longevity, sad with death, proud of understanding, ashamed of poverty; I don't take the pursuit of the interests of the whole world as my responsibility, and I don't take the rule of the world as my prominent position. Glory will make it clear, but everything ultimately boils down to the same thing. There is no difference between death and life.

Original text:

Do not like life, do not mourn; Not successful, not ugly or poor. I don't care about my own interests, but I don't care about the world for myself. It will be clear when it is obvious. Everything is in one room, life and death are the same.

Source: Zhuangzi Waipian-Warring States Zhuangzi

Extended data

Creative background:

Zhuangzi's prose philosophy is profound and profound, and it is a treasure in China's classical works. Therefore, Zhuangzi is not only a famous thinker in the history of China philosophy, but also an immortal essayist in the history of literature. No matter in philosophy or literary language, he had a far-reaching and great influence on thinkers and writers in China, and occupied an extremely important position in the history of China's thoughts and literature.

Zhuangzi's articles, with peculiar imagination, changeable writing style, full of romanticism and humorous satire in the form of fables, have a great influence on the literary language of later generations. His extraordinary imagination and unpredictable fables constitute Zhuangzi's unique and peculiar imaginary world. "Beyond the dust, strange things happen." (Liu Xizai's Outline of Literature and Art) Zhuang Zhou wrote Zhuangzi (regarded as a southern classic by Taoism), one of the Taoist classics.

There are 52 Zhuangzi articles recorded in the Records of Han Shu Literature and Art, and only 33 exist.

Zhuangzi is of great philosophical and literary value. Mr. Lu Xun once said, "His writing style is Wang Yang's, and his manners are all square. The works of the late Zhou philosophers are not the first. " Famous articles (Outline of the History of Chinese Literature) include Free Travel, Theory of Everything, Master of Health, etc. And "My Clever Understanding of Cattle" in "Master of Health" is especially popular in later generations.

Sima Qian introduced Zhuangzi's life in Historical Records with concise words, but did not mention Zhuangzi's words. The word Hugh was put forward in the Tang Dynasty. It is said that he wrote hundreds of thousands of words to identify Laozi's thoughts.

The structure of Zhuangzi's article is very strange. It doesn't look tight, but it often comes suddenly. You can do whatever you want and stop whenever you want. Wang Yang is reckless and changeable, sometimes seemingly irrelevant, jumping up and down at will, but his thoughts can run through. Sentences are also rich and varied, whether they are smooth or inverted, long or short, with richer vocabulary, detailed description, irregular rhymes and great expressiveness and originality.

Zhuangzi's Wang Yang is unrestrained, imaginative, moist and broad-minded, giving people a sense of being extraordinary, noble and wonderful. This is unique in the history of China's literature. His essay system has been separated from the record form, which indicates that the pre-Qin prose has developed to a mature stage. It can be said that Zhuangzi represents the highest achievement of pre-Qin prose.