"Is the philanthropic spirit far to seek, indeed?" the Master exclaimed; "I wish for it, and it is with me!"
The Minister of Crime in the State of Ch‘in asked Confucius whether Duke Ch‘au, of Lu was acquainted with the Proprieties; and he answered, "Yes, he knows them."
When Confucius had withdrawn, the minister bowed to Wu-ma K‘i, a disciple, and motioned to him to come forward. He said, "I have heard that superior men show no partiality; are they, too, then, partial? That prince took for his wife a lady of the Wu family, having the same surname as himself, and had her named 'Lady Tsz of Wu, the elder.' If he knows the Proprieties, then who does not?"
The disciple reported this to the Master, who thereupon remarked, "Well for me! If I err in any way, others are sure to know of it."
When the Master was in company with any one who sang, and who sang well, he must needs have the song over again, and after that would join in it.
"Although in letters," he said, "I may have none to compare with me, yet in my personification of the 'superior man' I have not as yet been successful."
"'A Sage and a Philanthropist?' How should I have the ambition?" said he. "All that I can well be called is this—An insatiable student, an unwearied teacher;—this, and no more."—"Exactly what we, your disciples, cannot by any learning manage to be," said Kung-si Hwa.
Once when the Master was seriously ill, Tsz-lu requested to be allowed to say prayers for him. "Are such available?" asked the Master. "Yes," said he; "and the Manual of Prayers says, 'Pray to the spirits above and to those here below.'"
"My praying has been going on a long while," said the Master.
"Lavish living," he said, "renders men disorderly; miserliness makes them hard. Better, however, the hard than the disorderly."