The Sayings Of Confucius Part 7

21. The Master said, Wisdom delights in water; love delights in hills.

Wisdom is stirring; love is quiet. Wisdom is merry; love grows old.

22. The Master said, By one revolution Ch'i might grow to be Lu; by one revolution Lu might reach the Way.

23. The Master said, A drinking horn that is no horn! What a horn!

What a drinking horn!

24. Tsai Wo[61] said, If a man of love were told that a man is in a well, would he go in after him?

[Footnote 60: A disciple.]

[Footnote 61: A disciple.]

The Master said, Why should he? A gentleman might be got to the well, but not trapped into it, He may be cheated, but not fooled.

25. The Master said, By breadth of reading and the ties of courtesy, a gentleman is kept, too, from false paths.

26. The Master saw Nan-tzu.[62] Tzu-lu was displeased.

The Master took an oath, saying, If I have done wrong, may Heaven forsake me, may Heaven forsake me!

27. The Master said, The highest minds cleave to the Centre, the Common. They have long been rare among the people.

28. Tzu-kung said, To treat the people with bounty and help the many, how were that? Could it be called love?

The Master said, What has this to do with love? Must it not be holiness? Yao and Shun[63] still yearned for this. Seeking a foothold for self, love finds a foothold for others; seeking light for itself, it enlightens others too. To learn from the near at hand may be called the clue to love.

[Footnote 62: The dissolute wife of Duke Ling of Wei.]

[Footnote 63: Two emperors of the golden age.]

BOOK VII

1. The Master said, A teller and not a maker, one that trusts and loves the past; I might liken myself to our old P'eng.[64]

2. The Master said, To think things over in silence, to learn and be always hungry, to teach and never weary; is any of these mine?

3. The Master said, Not making the most of my mind, want of thoroughness in learning, failure to do the right when told it, lack of strength to overcome faults; these are my sorrows.

4. In his free moments the Master was easy and cheerful.

5. The Master said, How deep is my decay! It is long since I saw the Duke of Chou[65] in a dream.

6. The Master said, Keep thy will on the Way, lean on mind, rest in love, move in art.

7. The Master said, From the man that paid in dried meat upwards, I have withheld teaching from no one.

8. The Master said, Only to those fumbling do I open, only for those stammering do I find the word.

[Footnote 64: We should be glad to know more of old P'eng, but nothing is known of him.]

[Footnote 65: Died 1105 B.C. He was the younger brother of King Wu, the founder of the Chou dynasty, as great in peace as the King in war.

He was so bent on carrying out the old principles of government that 'if anything did not tally with them, he looked up and thought, till day pa.s.sed into night, and if by luck he found the answer he sat and waited for the dawn' (Mencius, Book VIII, chapter 20).]

If I lift one corner and the other three are left unturned, I say no more.

9. When eating beside a mourner the Master never ate his fill. On days when he had been wailing, he did not sing.

10. The Master said to Yen Yuan, To go forward when in office and lie quiet when not; only I and thou can do that.

Tzu-lu said, If ye had to lead three armies, Sir, whom would ye have with you?

No man, said the Master, that would face a tiger bare-fisted, or plunge into a river and die without a qualm; but one, indeed, who, fearing what may come, lays his plans well and carries them through.

11. The Master said, If shouldering a whip were a sure road to riches I should turn carter; but since there is no sure road, I tread the path I love.

12. The Master gave heed to abstinence, war and sickness.

13. When he was in Ch'i, for three months after hearing the Shao played, the Master knew not the taste of flesh.

I did not suppose, he said, that music could reach such heights.

14. Jan Yu said, Is the Master for the lord of Wei?[66]

[Footnote 66: The grandson of Duke Ling, the husband of Nan-tzu. His father had been driven from the country for plotting to kill Nan-tzu.

When Duke Ling died, he was succeeded by his grandson, who opposed by force his father's attempts to seize the throne.]

I shall ask him, said Tzu-kung.

He went in, and said, What kind of men were Po-yi[67] and Shu-ch'i?

Worthy men of yore, said the Master.

Did they rue the past?

They sought love and found it; what had they to rue?

Tzu-kung went out, and said, The Master is not for him.

15. The Master said, Eating coa.r.s.e rice and drinking water, with bent arm for pillow, we may be merry; but ill-gotten wealth and honours are to me a wandering cloud.

16. The Master said, Given a few more years, making fifty for learning the Yi,[68] I might be freed from gross faults.

[Footnote 67: See Book V, -- 22.]