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?

To conquer demons, first conquer your mind. When the mind is subdued, demons withdraw obediently. To control knaves, first control your own mood. When your mood is balanced, scoundrels cannot get at you.

If you know that whatever is made inevitable breaks down, you needn't seek too hard for achievement. If you know that all living beings inevitably die, you needn't work too hard on health lore.

There is much meaning in the word endure. For example, when dealing with unstable human feelings and uneven pathways in life, without endurance to hold you up, you may fall into a pit in the brush.

When greedy people are given gold, they are bitter that they haven't gotten jewels; when they are made barons they are resentful that they haven't been made lords. Though powerful and rich, their attitude is that of beggars. For those who know how to be content, simple fare is more delicious than rich delicacies, a cloth coat is warmer than fox fur, and an ordinary citizen does not defer to a king or a lord.

Compromise to please others is not as good as integrity that annoys others. Rather than be praised without being good, it is better to be slandered without being bad.

When one is not slipshod in small matters, not hypocritical in secret, and not reckless in disappointment, only then is one a true hero.