In whatever you do, if you leave a sense of incompleteness, then Creation cannot resent you, ghosts and spirits cannot harm you. If you insist on fulfillment in your work and perfection in achievement, you will become either inwardly deranged or outwardly unsettled.

One should not seek happiness, just nurture the spirit of joy as the basis of summoning happiness. One should not try to escape misfortune, just get rid of viciousness as a means of avoiding misfortune.

Attention is the mind's feet; if you do not control your attention strictly, it runs into misleading pathways.

When the liver is diseased, the eyesight fails; when the kidneys are diseased, the hearing is adversely affected. The disease is not visible, but its effects are. Therefore, enlightened people, wishing to be free from obvious faults, first get rid of hidden faults.

If a poor house is well kept, or a poor girl well groomed, there is elegance if not beauty. If good people should come upon hard times, why should they immediately give up on themselves?

Business and scholarship pass away with the person, but the soul is forever like new. Fame and fortune change with the generations, but the spirit is always the same. Enlightened people surely should not exchange the lasting for the ephemeral.

Don't be too severe in criticizing people's faults; consider how much they can bear. Don't be too lofty in enjoining virtue, so people may be able to follow.