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.

There are those men who say to repay evil with kindness. But I say, how then are we to repay kindness? Repay kindness with kindness, but repay evil with justice.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

In vain I have looked for a single man capable of seeing his own faults and bringing the charge home against himself.

As the water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it, so a wise man adapts himself to circumstances.

See a person's means ... Observe his motives. Examine that in which he rests. How can a person conceal his character?

Only by perfect virtue can the perfect path, in all its courses, be made a fact.