Confucius Corner

Hsio R

10. Tsze-ch’in asked Tsze-kung, saying,
a) ‘When our master comes to any country, he does not fail to learn all about its government. Does he ask his information? or is it given to him?’
Tsze-kung said,
b) ‘Our master is benign, upright, courteous, temperate, and complaisant, and thus he gets his information. The master’s mode of asking information!-- is it not different from that of other men?’

11. The Master said, ‘While a man’s father is alive, look at the bent of his will; when his father is dead, look at his conduct. If for three years he does not alter from the way of his father, he may be called filial.’

12. The philosopher Yu said,
a) ‘In practicing the rules of propriety, a natural ease is to be prized. In the ways prescribed by the ancient kings, this is the excellent quality, and in things small and great we follow them.
b) ‘Yet it is not to be observed in all cases. If one, knowing how such ease should be prized, manifests it, without regulating it by the rules of propriety, this likewise is not to be done.’

© "The Wisdom of Confucius" by James Legge, published by Axiom Publishing

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