Some one asked, "What say you of the remark, 'Requite enmity with kindness'?"
"How then," he answered, "would you requite kindness? Requite enmity with straightforwardness, and kindness with kindness."
"Ah! no one knows me!" he once exclaimed.
"Sir," said Tsz-kung, "how comes it to pass that no one knows you?"
"While I murmur not against Heaven," continued the Master, "nor cavil at men; while I stoop to learn and aspire to penetrate into things that are high; yet 'tis Heaven alone knows what I am."
LiŠu, a kinsman of the duke, having laid a complaint against Tsz-lu before Ki K'ang, an officer came to Confucius to inform him of the fact, and he added, "My lord is certainly having his mind poisoned by his kinsman LiŠu, but through my influence perhaps we may yet manage to see him exposed in the marketplace or the Court."
"If right principles are to have their course, it is so destined," said the Master; "if they are not to have their course, it is so destined. What can LiŠu do against Destiny?"
"There are worthy men," said the Master, "fleeing from the world; some from their district; some from the sight of men's looks; some from the language they hear."
"The men who have risen from their posts and withdrawn in this manner are seven in number."
Tsz-lu, having lodged overnight in Shih-mun, was accosted by the gate-keeper in the morning. "Where from?" he asked. "From Confucius," Tsz-lu responded. "That is the man," said he, "who knows things are not up to the mark, and is making some ado about them, is it not?"