Empress Sima Lingji
Overview
 
Empress Sima Lingji was, briefly, an empress of the Chinese
History of China
Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...

/Xianbei
Xianbei
The Xianbei were a significant Mongolic nomadic people residing in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and eastern Mongolia. The title “Khan” was first used among the Xianbei.-Origins:...

 dynasty Northern Zhou
Northern Zhou
The Northern Zhou Dynasty followed the Western Wei, and ruled northern China from 557 to 581. It was overthrown by the Sui Dynasty.Northern Zhou's basis of power was established by Yuwen Tai, who was paramount general of Western Wei, following the split of Northern Wei into Western Wei and...

. Her husband was Emperor Jing
Emperor Jing of Northern Zhou
Emperor Jing of Northern Zhou , personally name né Yuwen Yan , later Yuwen Chan , was the last emperor of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Zhou. He became emperor at the age of six, after his father Emperor Xuan formally passed the throne to him, but Emperor Xuan retained the imperial powers...

, the final emperor of the dynasty.

Sima Lingji was the daughter of the Northern Zhou general Sima Xiaonan (司馬消難) the Duke of Yingyang and Lady Yuchi, daughter of Yuchi Jiong
Yuchi Jiong
Yuchi Jiong , courtesy name Bojuluo , was a general of the Chinese/Xianbei states Western Wei and Northern Zhou. He first came to prominence while his uncle Yuwen Tai served as the paramount general of Western Wei, and subsequently served Northern Zhou after the Yuwen clan established the state...

. In 579, Emperor Jing's father, the retired emperor Emperor Xuan
Emperor Xuan of Northern Zhou
Emperor Xuan of Northern Zhou , personal name Yuwen Yun , courtesy name Qianbo , was an emperor of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Zhou. He was known in history as an erratic and wasteful ruler, whose actions greatly weakened the Northern Zhou regime...

, took Sima Lingji to be his son Emperor Jing's wife. Sima Lingji's age at that time was not recorded in history, but Emperor Jing was six-years-old at the time.

Emperor Xuan died in summer 580, and the official Yang Jian
Emperor Wen of Sui
Emperor Wen of Sui — personal name Yang Jian , Xianbei name Puliuru Jian , nickname Naluoyan — was the founder and first emperor of China's Sui Dynasty . He was a hard-working administrator and a micromanager. As a Buddhist, he encouraged the spread of Buddhism through the state...

, the father of Emperor Xuan's wife Empress Yang Lihua
Empress Yang Lihua
Empress Yang Lihua was an empress of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Zhou, and later a princess of Sui Dynasty. Her husband was Emperor Xuan of Northern Zhou , and her father was Emperor Wen of Sui ....

, seized power as regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...

.
Quotations

Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers. Men of bright fancies may in this respect be compared to those angels whom the scripture represents as covering their eyes with their wings.

A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume, Book 1, Section 4, p.225

Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative.

Introduction to Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers by Richard Rorty, Volume 3, 1998.

The conception of the necessary unit of all that is resolves itself into the poverty of the imagination, and a freer logic emancipates us from the straitwaistcoated benevolent institution, which idealism palms off as the totality of being.

Our Knowledge of the External World by Bertrand Russell

The true function of logic,... as applied to matters of experience,... is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is.

Our Knowledge of the External World by Bertrand Russell

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

Poetry and Imagination by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1872.

Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.

Introduction to Men at War by Ernest Hemingway, 1942.

There is no life I knowthat compares to pure imaginationLiving there you'll be freeif you truly wish to be

Pure Imagination|Pure Imagination by Gene Wilder, 1971.

Impossibility is only the figment of an insufficient imagination.

The Song Of Sin by Phil Duncan, 1998.

 
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