PEARL S. BUCK

PEARL S. BUCK

“Many people lose the small joys while awaiting the great happiness”.

 

How often we have reflected and enjoyed this quote by the writer and Nobel Prize in Literature Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker Buck (United States, 1892-1973). It is one of the pearls of wisdom (as her name itself says) left us in her prolific work of more than 80 books.

As her parents were missionaries, Pearl spent the first 40 years of her life in China, and it is this culture that inspired her stories. In them, she is portraying the people and their wisdom (especially their core values), in a sensitive and sweet way. she wrote novel, poetry, drama, children’s literature, biography and even a cookbook. Her writings were first published in magazines like Nation, Asia or Atlantic Monthly, to then be distributed by publishers. Let’s remember titles like ‘East Wind, West Wind’, ‘The Good Earth’ –which also earned her the Pulitzer Prize–, ‘Peony’, ‘Dragon Seed’ or her memoirs ‘China, as I See it’.

She married twice and, after the death of a biological child, she adopted 7 children, and started living in a farm, back in the United States. In her home country, she joined the activism for civil and human rights of women. Her experience in the Far East encouraged her to found the associations East and West, of cultural exchange between East and West, and Welcome House, an adoption agency of Asian children. With her Pearl S. Buck Foundation, she also helped Asian orphans who could not be adopted.

Now, let’s enjoy more quotes by this talented writer and activist:

 

Enthusiasm is the daily bread of youth. Skepticism, the daily wine of the aging.

 

Do not expect to change your mood, your mind must know it has to get to work.

 

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. Knowing how to do something well is to enjoy it.

 

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.

 

You cannot force yourself to feel something you do not feel, but you can oblige yourself to do good, despite what you feel.

 

Truth is always exciting. Life is boring without it.

 

The true wisdom of life is to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.

 

Be content with little is difficult; with a lot, impossible.

 

Enjoying a job is like finding the fountain of youth.

 


I wish you a very nice week,

Álex Rovira

Alex Rovira