I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.
A person is born with feelings of envy and hate. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to violence and crime, and any sense of loyalty and good faith will be abandoned.
If the gentleman has ability, he is magnanimous, generous, tolerant, and straightforward, through which he opens the way to instruct others.
Since the nature of people is bad, to become corrected they must be taught by teachers and to be orderly they must acquire ritual and moral principles.
Now it is human nature to want to eat to ones fill when hungry, to want to warm up when cold, to want to rest when tired. These all are a part of people's emotional nature.
When people lack teachers, their tendencies are not corrected; when they do not have ritual and moral principles, then their lawlessness is not controlled.
There are successful scholars, public-spirited scholars, upright scholars, cautious scholars, and those who are merely petty men.
In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.
In antiquity the sage kings recognized that men's nature is bad and that their tendencies were not being corrected and their lawlessness controlled.
I say that human nature is the original beginning and the raw material, and deliberate effort is what makes it patterned, ordered, and exalted.
Whether the gentleman is capable or not, he is loved all the same; conversely the petty man is loathed all the same.
If the quickness of the mind and the fluency of the tongue are too punctilious and sharp, moderate them in your activity and rest.
When you concentrate on agriculture and industry and are frugal in expenditures, Heaven cannot impoverish your state.