Confucius' Character
Table of Contents
There are 3 attainments of the superior man which are beyond me:
- Being sympathetic without anxiety
- Being wise without scepticism
- Being brave without fear.
But Sir, that is what you say of yourself.
Whenever Tsz-Kung drew comparisons from others, the Master would say:
Ah, how wise and great you must have become! Now I have no time to do that.
My great concern is, not that men do not know me, but that they cannot.
If a man refrain from making preparations against his being imposed upon, and from counting upon others’ want of good faith towards him, while he is foremost to perceive what is passing�surely that is a wise and good man.
Wi-shang Mau accosted Confucius, saying:
“Kiu, how comes it that you manage to go perching and roosting in this way? Is it not because you show yourself so smart a speaker, now?”
I should not dare do that
“Tis that I am sick of men’s immovableness and deafness to reason.”
“In a well-bred horse, what one admires is not its speed, but its good points.
What say you of the remark, ‘Requite enmity with kindness’?
“How then,” he answered, “would you requite kindness? Requite enmity with straightforwardness, and kindness with kindness.”
“Ah! no one knows me!” he once exclaimed.
Sir, how comes it to pass that no one knows you?
“While I murmur not against Heaven,” continued the Master, “nor cavil at men; while I stoop to learn and aspire to penetrate into things that are high; yet ’tis Heaven alone knows what I am.”
Liu was a kinsman of the duke. He complained against Tsz-Lu before Ki K’ang. An officer came to Confucius to inform him of this.
My lord is certainly having his mind poisoned by his kinsman Liu. But through my influence, perhaps we may yet manage to see him exposed in the marketplace or the Court.
If right principles are to have their course, it is so destined. If they are not to have their course, it is so destined. What can Liu do against Destiny?
There are worthy men fleeing from the world. Some from their district; some from the sight of men’s looks; some from the language they hear." “The men who have risen from their posts and withdrawn in this manner are seven in number.”
Tsz-Lu, having lodged overnight in Shih-mun, was accosted by the gate-keeper in the morning.
“Where from?” he asked. “From Confucius,”
Tsz-Lu responded. “That is the man,” said he, “who knows things are not up to the mark, and is making some ado about them, is it not?” When the Master was in Wei, he was once pounding on the musical stone, when a man with a basket of straw crossed his threshold, and exclaimed, “Ah, there is a heart that feels! Aye, drub the stone!”
After which he added, “How vulgar! how he hammers away on one note!�and no one knows him, and he gives up, and all is over! Be it deep, our skirts we’ll raise to the waist, �Or shallow, then up to the knee,’” “What determination!” said the Master. “Yet it was not hard to do.”
Tsz-chang once said to him, “In the ‘Book of the Annals’ it is stated that while K�u-tsung was in the Mourning Shed he spent the three years without speaking. What is meant by that?”
Why must you name Ku-tsung? It was so with all other ancient sovereigns. When one of them died, the heads of every department agreed between themselves that they should give ear for 3 years to the Prime Minister.
When their betters love the Rules, then the folk are easy tools
Yuen Jang who was sitting, waiting for him in a squatting (disrespectful) posture*. The Master said to him:
Superphysics Note
A miscreant is someone who in his youth could show no humility or subordination, who in his prime misses his opportunity.
He tapped him on the shin with his staff.
Someone asked about his attendant a youth from the village of Kiueh whether he was one who improved.
He replied, “I note that he seats himself in the places reserved for his betters, and that when he is walking he keeps abreast with his seniors.
He is not one of those who care for improvement= he wants to be a man all at once.”