To sacrifice to a spirit with which you have nothing to do, is mere servility.
To shirk your duty when you see it before you, shows want of moral courage.
Some one inquired as to the meaning of the Great Sacrifice. The Master said: I do not know. He who knew its meaning would find it as easy to govern the Empire as to look upon this (pointing to his palm).[3]
Wang-sun Chia[4] asked, saying: What means the adage, "Better be civil to the kitchen-god than to the god of the inner sanctum"?—The Master replied: The adage is false. He who sins against Heaven can rely on the intercession of none.
The Master said: He who serves his prince with all the proper ceremony will be accounted by men a flatterer.
It is bootless to discuss accomplished facts, to protest against things past remedy, to find fault with things bygone.
How am I to regard one who has rank without liberality, who performs ceremonies without reverence, who approaches the rites of mourning without sorrow?
Men's faults are characteristic.[5] It is by observing a man's faults that one may come to know his virtues.
Having heard the True Way in the morning what matters it if one should come to die at night?
The scholar who is bent on studying the principles of virtue, yet is ashamed of bad clothes and coarse food, is not yet fit to receive instruction.