Those who act on excitement act intermittently; this is hardly the way to avoid regression. Those whose understanding comes from emotional perceptions are as confused as they are enlightened; this is not a lamp that is constantly bright.

If those who give are conscious of their own generosity and those who receive feel indebted, they are no longer family but rather strangers doing business.

Flowers should be viewed when half open, wine should be drunk only to subtle intoxication; there is great fun in this. If you view flowers in full bloom and drink to drunkenness, it becomes a bad experience. Those who are living to the full should think about this.

If you do not join the polluted, then you are pure; if you reject society in search of purity, that is not purity but fanaticism.

Diligence means to be keen in matters of virtue and justice, but worldly people use diligence to solve their economic difficulties. Frugality means to have little desire for material goods, but worldly people use frugality as a cover for stinginess. Thus do watchwords of enlightened life turn into tools for the private business of small people. What a pity!

Our body is a small universe; to regulate emotions and feelings is a way of harmonization.

If you fear that people will know if you do something bad, then there is something good in bad. If you are eager for people to know when you do something good, then there is something bad in good.