There may be men who act without understanding why. I do not. To listen much, pick out the good and follow it; to see much and ponder it: this comes next to understanding.

He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.

Make faithfulness and truth thy masters: have no friends unlike thyself: be not ashamed to mend thy faults.

Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you use killing at all? Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it.

The Way is not for, but from, man; if we take the Way as something superhuman, beyond man, this is not the real Way.

I have never seen a man as fond of virtue as of women.

Know what you know and know that you don't know what you don't know — that is the characteristic of one who knows.