Chinese and Arabian Literature - E. Wilson - The Search For Mecca

72
CONFUCIUS
" Be generous yourself, and exact little from others ; then
you banish complaints.
" ' With one who does not come to me inquiring What of
this ? ' and ' What of that ? ' I never can ask ' What of this ? ' and
give him up.
" If a number of students are all day together, and in their
conversation never approach the subject of righteousness, but
are fond merely of giving currency to smart little sayings, they
are difficult indeed to manage.
" When the ' superior man ' regards righteousness as the
thing material, gives operation to it according to the Rules of
Propriety, lets it issue in humility, and become complete in sin-
cerity—there indeed is your superior man !
" The trouble of the superior man will be his own want of
ability: it will be no trouble to him that others do not know
him.
" Such a man thinks it hard to end his days and leave a name
to be no longer named.
" The superior man is exacting of himself ;
— ;
the common man
is exacting of others.
" A superior man has self-respect, and does not strive ; is
sociable, yet no party man.
" He does not promote a man because of his words, or pass
over the words because of the man."
Tsz-kung put to him the question, " Is there one word upon
which the whole life may proceed ? "
The Master replied, " Is not Reciprocity such a word ?—what
you do not yourself desire, do not put before others."
" So far as I have to do with others, whom do I over-censure ?
whom do I over-praise? If there be something in them that
looks very praiseworthy, that something I put to the test. I
would have the men of the present day to walk in the straight
path whereby those of the Three Dynasties have walked.
" I have arrived as it were at the annalist's blank page.
Once he who had a horse would lend it to another to mount
now, alas ! it is not so.
" Artful speech is the confusion of Virtue. Impatience over
little things introduces confusion into great schemes.
" What is disliked by the masses needs inquiring into ; so
also does that which they have a preference for.
" A man may give breadth to his principles : it is not principles
(in themselves) that give breadth to the man.