Quote by Du Fu: “The common people's suffering, the official's sorrow; my heart is forever worried about the nation.”

This quote highlights a deep empathy for the suffering of ordinary people and a strong sense of responsibility toward the country. It reveals a poet intensely engaged with the social and political realities of his time, feeling the weight of national distress personally.

Du Fu, a Confucian scholar, felt a profound duty to his country and its people. His poetry often lamented the hardships faced by commoners due to war, famine, and ineffective governance during the tumultuous An Lushan Rebellion.

Tang dynasty Chinese poet whose work earned him the title Poet Sage, one of the two supreme poets of classical Chinese literature alongside Li Bai. His poetry, unlike Li Bai's romanticism, is marked by Confucian social concern and direct engagement with the suffering caused by war and famine. He lived through the devastating An Lushan Rebellion and his poems of that period are considered among the greatest war poetry in any language.