The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [75]
19. Someone asked the master, ‘What do you say of the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?’
20. The master replied, ‘With what then will you recompense kindness?
21. ‘Recompense injury with justice, and kindness with kindness.’
Chapter 6
1. The master was one day playing on a musical drum by a river, when a man carrying a straw basket passed by.
2. The man said, ‘His heart is full who so beats the musical drum!’
3. The master said, ‘Deep water must be crossed with one’s clothes on;
4. ‘Shallow water may be crossed with one’s clothes held up.
5. ‘He who requires more from himself than from others, will keep himself from being an object of resentment.
6. ‘When a person is not in the habit of saying, “What do I think of this? What shall I do in this case?” there is indeed little hope for him.
7. ‘When a number of people are together for a whole day without their conversation turning to questions about the good, theirs is a hard case.’
8. The master said, ‘To do one’s best with humility and sincerity: that is what it is to be a superior man.
9. ‘The superior man is distressed by his want of ability. He is not distressed by being unknown.
10. ‘What the superior man seeks is in himself. What the inferior man seeks is in others.
11. ‘The superior man is not a partisan. He seeks to grasp all things with justice.
12. ‘The superior man dislikes not having a good reputation after his death.
13. ‘The superior man does not value others solely on account of their words,
14. ‘Nor does he put aside good words on account of their speaker’s reputation, even if it is bad.
15. ‘The superior man cannot be known in little matters; he is proved by great things.
16. ‘The inferior man cannot be entrusted with great things; his failings will be seen in little matters.’
17. The master said, ‘In my dealings with others, whose evil do I blame, whose goodness do I praise, beyond what is just?
18. ‘If sometimes I give high praise, there must be grounds for it in my examination of that individual.’
19. The master said, ‘False words undo virtue. Want of forbearance in small things undoes great things.
20. ‘When the multitude hate a man, it is necessary to examine the case.
21. ‘When the multitude love a man, it is necessary to examine the case.
22. ‘For the multitude can hate what should be loved, and love what should be hated.’
Chapter 7
1. What is it to have faults? It is to have faults and not to reform them.
2. The master said, ‘Rightness is more to man than fire or water.
3. ‘I have seen men die from treading on water or fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of rightness.
4. ‘There are three friendships which are advantageous. These are friendships with the upright, with the sincere, and with those of much observation.
5. ‘There are three friendships which are injurious. These are friendships with those of specious airs, those who are insinuatingly soft, and those with glib tongues.
6. ‘There are three kinds of enjoyment which are advantageous. These are discriminating studies, speaking of the goodness of others, and possessing worthy friends.
7. ‘There are three kinds of enjoyment which are injurious. These are extravagant pleasures, idleness and sauntering about, and feasting.
8. ‘Three errors are committed by those who stand in the presence of a man of virtue and station.
9. ‘One is speaking out of turn, this is rashness.
10. ‘Another is keeping silent when it is time to speak, this is concealment.
11. ‘A third is speaking without looking interlocutors in the eye, this is prevarication.
12. ‘There are three things that the superior person guards against.
13. ‘In youth, he guards against excess. In the vigour of maturity, he guards against quarrelsomeness. In old age, he guards against covetousness.
14. ‘There are three things of which the superior man stands in awe. He stands in awe of the command of reason. He stands in awe of great men. He stands in awe of the wisdom of