Unify your attention. Do not listen with your ears, but with your mind. Do not listen with your mind but with your essence.

Give a man a fish, feed home for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed for a lifetime.

With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bent arm for a pillow - I have still joy in the midst of all these things.

Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.

As in the case of making a mound, if, before the very last basketful, I stop, then I shall have stopped. As in the case of leveling the ground, if, though tipping only one basketful, I am going forward, then I shall be making progress.

Rate the task above the prize; will not the mind be raised? Fight thine own faults, not the faults of others; will not evil be mended?

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