Post by Tamrin on Sept 16, 2008 7:12:58 GMT 10
Confucius
While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve spirits?
...While you do not know life, how can you know about death?
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
Men's natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart.
The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come.
When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin.
When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come.
Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved.
To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue;
these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.
To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.
What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.
He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind,
nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful may be called intelligent indeed.
I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge;
I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.
Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.
Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
The cautious seldom err.
The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue.
They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.
There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth ... lust.
When he is strong ... quarrelsomeness. When he is old ... covetousness.
To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.
Confucius presenting the young Gautama Buddha to Laozi
While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve spirits?
...While you do not know life, how can you know about death?
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
Men's natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart.
The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come.
When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin.
When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come.
Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved.
To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue;
these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.
To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.
What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.
He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind,
nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful may be called intelligent indeed.
I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge;
I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.
Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.
Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
The cautious seldom err.
The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue.
They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.
There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth ... lust.
When he is strong ... quarrelsomeness. When he is old ... covetousness.
To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.
Confucius presenting the young Gautama Buddha to Laozi