The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [79]
7. ‘In regard to his conduct of business, he is keen that it should be scrupulous.
8. ‘In regard to his doubts, he is keen to question others.
9. ‘In regard to what angers him, he is careful to consider the difficulties that might flow from expressing anger, and meditates a better course in response.
10. ‘In regard to being offered the chance of material gains, he first thinks of honesty.’
11. The master said, ‘To contemplate good, and to pursue it as if it could not be reached;
12. ‘To contemplate evil, and to shrink from it as one would shrink from putting one’s hand in boiling water;
13. ‘These I have seen in the best men, and approved.’
14. The master said, ‘By nature people are very much alike. By practice, they diverge widely apart.
15. ‘Only the wisest of the highest class and the stupidest of the lowest class cannot be changed, or diverted from their path.’
16. The master was asked what constitutes perfect virtue.
17. He said, ‘Generosity, sincerity, earnestness and kindness: these together constitute perfect virtue.
18. ‘It is said, “If a thing is really hard, it cannot be ground into thinness. If a thing is really white, it will not darken when steeped in dye.”’
Chapter 15
1. The master said, ‘There are six becloudings. The first is to love benevolence without love of learning: this leads to foolish simplicity.
2. ‘The second is to love knowing without love of learning: this leads to thoughtlessness.
3. ‘The third is to love sincerity without love of learning: this leads to disregard of consequences.
4. ‘The fourth is to love straightforwardness without love of learning: this leads to insolence.
5. ‘The fifth is to love boldness without love of learning: this leads to quarrelsomeness.
6. ‘The sixth is to love firmness without love of learning: this leads to extravagance.’
Chapter 16
1. The master urged his pupils to study poetry. ‘For,’ he said, ‘it stimulates the mind, prompts self-contemplation,
2. ‘Encourages sociability, distils the experience of refined minds, and teaches about the world.’
3. He said, ‘Not to read poetry is to stand with one’s face to the wall.
4. ‘He who, from day to day, does not forget what he has yet to learn,
5. ‘And from month to month does not forget what he has yet to attain to, may indeed be said to love learning.’
Chapter 17
1. The master said, ‘The superior man learns in order to reach the utmost of his principles.
2. ‘The officer, having discharged his duties, should apply himself to learning,
3. ‘The scholar, having completed his learning, should apply himself to be an officer.
4. ‘The faults of the great are like eclipses of the sun and moon.
5. ‘All men see them; when they occur, all look up and take note of them.’
6. His pupils said of the master, ‘He is like a house with towering walls.
7. ‘If one find not the door to enter thereby, the treasures within are hidden from view.
8. ‘To be admitted, one must be invited. Once invited, a pupil may contemplate the treasures, and carry away as many as he can hold.’
9. For the master said to them all, ‘What is it to study in the house of a master, but to become masters of yourselves,
10. ‘And to build a house of your own in which others may come to collect treasures that you have made?
11. ‘For the only true master is oneself, and the only true life is the life ruled by your master.
12. ‘You are here within the walls of my house, but only as a starting-place for your own task,
13. ‘Which is to build your own house for your own life, there to live independently, with honour, justice, strength and wisdom.
14. ‘This is the teaching of all sages worthy of the name: that one must only be a pupil in order to cease being a pupil;
15. ‘That one must study in order to learn; and that one must learn in order to live.
16. ‘For in the brief season of life the first responsibility is to live, and to enrich life in oneself and others,
17. ‘So that the final history of things may be a history of good.’
Songs
1
The moon cannot equal the radiance of your face,