Referring To Oneself
When referring to oneself, the regular pronoun "I" was to be avoided in most situations. When addressing a person or persons of a superior status, use of a humble form of "I" was required. For example, servants and slaves must not use the pronoun "I", when speaking to their masters. The same rule applied among royalty, government officials, and commoners based on rank and status. Socially, a person may refer to him/herself humbly in formal exchanges and settings, regardless of status and rank, in order to display virtue and enlightenment. Below is a list of some of the humble substitutes, when referring to oneself or his/her own family or possessions.
Read more about this topic: Chinese Honorifics
Famous quotes containing the words referring to, referring and/or oneself:
“Is suffering so very serious? I have come to doubt it. It may be quite childish, a sort of undignified pastime—I’m referring to the kind of suffering a man inflicts on a woman or a woman on a man. It’s extremely painful. I agree that it’s hardly bearable. But I very much fear that this sort of pain deserves no consideration at all. It’s no more worthy of respect than old age or illness.”
—Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)
“For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you.”
—Bible: Hebrew Deuteronomy, 6:15.
The words are also found in Exodus 20:5, referring to the second commandment: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image ... for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”
“The true courage of civilized nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many. The important thing here is not personal mettle but aligning oneself with the universal.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)