Hui Shi was chief minister of the state of Wei and the sharpest of the School of Names. He left ten famous paradoxes that dissolve the lines we draw across the world: the greatest thing has nothing outside it, the smallest nothing inside; the sky is as low as the earth; love all things, for heaven and earth are one body. His lifelong friend and rival was Zhuangzi, who mourned that after Hui Shi died he had no one left worth talking to. Where the Daoist used paradox to free the mind, Hui Shi used it to probe how language carves up a seamless reality.
A statesman and logician of the School of Names, and the lifelong sparring partner of Zhuangzi.
Words
“The greatest has nothing beyond itself; the smallest has nothing within. Love all things, for heaven and earth are one body.”
