It is Zhu Guangqian’s famous saying that before people’s hearts are purified, life must be beautified. Zhu Guangqian firmly believed that emotion is more important than reason. To cleanse people's hearts, it is not something that a few moralists can say. It must start from "enjoying emotions and cultivating one's character", and must use other means besides having enough food, warm clothes, high officials and generous salaries, etc. A nobler, purer pursuit.

Zhu Guangqian (September 19, 1897 - March 6, 1986), courtesy name Mengshi, lived in the old house of the Zhu family in Dai'ao Village, Qilin Town, Tongcheng County, Anqing City, Anhui Province (now Songyang County, Anhui Province) He is a famous modern and contemporary esthetician, literary theorist, educator and translator.

Graduated from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Hong Kong in 1922. In 1925, he studied at the University of Edinburgh in England and devoted himself to the study and research of literature, psychology and philosophy. He later received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Strasbourg in France. After returning to China in 1933, he successively served as professor at Peking University, Sichuan University, and Wuhan University. After 1946, he has been teaching at Peking University, teaching aesthetics and Western literature. Zhu Guangqian passed away on March 6, 1986.

Extended information

Zhu Guangqian firmly believes that emotion is more important than reason. To cleanse people's hearts, it is not something that a few moralists can say. It must start from "enjoying emotions and cultivating one's nature". In addition to having enough food, warm clothes, high officials and generous salaries, etc., there are other higher and purer aspirations. Therefore, he wrote famous sayings asking for the purification of people's hearts and the beautification of life first. Because in his view, the world is a dense and seamless web of interests.

Too many people are wandering around in it, and they are bound tightly by the two big words "profit and harm" throughout their lives. The process of "creating beauty and discovering beauty" allows people to escape from it and "do it without caring".

Zhu Guangqian believes that whether you are engaged in learning or career, you can achieve real achievements only if you have an indifferent spirit, only seek to satisfy your ideals and interests, and do not care about gains and losses. In other words, only by treating life without utilitarianism can we live a truly valuable life.