"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 sincerity--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.
"Not to retract after committing an error may itself be called error.
"If I have passed the whole day without food and the whole night without sleep, occupied with my thoughts, it profits me nothing: I were better engaged in learning.
"The superior man deliberates upon how he may walk in truth, not upon what he may eat. The farmer may plough, and be on the way to want: the student learns, and is on his way to emolument. To live a right life is the concern of men of nobler minds: poverty gives them none.
"Whatsoever the intellect may attain to, unless the humanity within is powerful enough to keep guard over it, is assuredly lost, even though it be gained.