quotations about Yin & Yang
In the Shijing (Book of Songs) where the words yin and yang made their earliest appearance, the word yin is used in conjunction with the word rain denoting cloudy, shady weather: "Gently blows the east wind, with yin and with rain." The word yang, on the other hand, denotes the sun: "Heavy lies the dew, nothing but the yang can dry it.
LI-HSIANG LISA ROSENLEE
Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation
Yin and yang are opposite qualities, and as such, they are mutually consumptive. For example, yin's moisture can extinguish yang's heat. Or yang's activity can transform yin's stillness and inertia. These qualities translate into the body: Our form and substance are yin; the body's metabolic processes are yang. The inside of the uterus is yin. The moment the egg is released from the ovary is yang. Any bodily process or substance can be analyzed in this way.
LESLIE MCGEE
"Traditional Chinese Medicine", Integrative Womens Health
The yin and yang influences sent out by heaven and earth during the four seasons constitute the fundament and source of the existence of all ten thousand things. The wise man thus will nourish himself in spring and summer with yang influences, but in the autumn and winter with yin influences, in accordance with his foundation. He therefore finds himself in complete harmony with the ebb and flow of all existence on the way of life and growth. He who acts contrary to his basic principles brings harm to his source and destroys his original influences.
PAUL ULRICH UNSCHULD
Medicine in China: A History of Ideas
Yin and Yang are not absolute, but their principle never changes. The reaches of Heaven and Earth and yin and yang are vast, and ultimately everything in the universe can be classified into the polarity of ying and yang.
HUANG DI
Huang Di Nei Jing
In Western society, Yin-Yang is often referred to as "Yin and Yang" and brings to mind simple contrasts such as dark and light, male and female, logic and emotion. But Yin-Yang is much more than mere opposites. Rather, it represents the idea that the interaction of contradictory forces not only creates harmony, but also makes for a greater, more complete "whole."
REBECCA SHAMBAUGH
"The Yin and Yang of Balanced Leadership", Huffington Post
Reality, the ancient Chinese concluded, is full of polarities such as day and night, bitter and sweet, winter and summer, male and female. They called this natural harmony of opposites yin and yang. That is why everything, including meals (we notice this in Chinese cooking) should be in conformity with this bipolarity, balancing sour and sweet, peppery and bland. This reality of which we are born, with its yin and yang, is a reality in which everything and everybody are made of the same material. They call this material ch'i. Ch'i is the basic reality of all that is, including the rocks, the lilies, and us!
DANIEL C. MAGUIRE
Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten World Religions