therners," said he, "have the proverb, 'The man who sticks not
to rule will never make a charm-worker or a medical man,'
Good!--'Whoever is intermittent in his practise of virtue will live to
be ashamed of it.' Without prognostication," he added, "that will indeed
be so."

"The nobler-minded man," he remarked, "will be agreeable even when he
disagrees; the small-minded man will agree and be disagreeable."

Tsz-kung was consulting him, and asked, "What say you of a person who
was liked by all in his village?"

"That will scarcely do," he answered.

"What, then, if they all disliked him?"

"That, too," said he, "is scarcely enough. Better if he were liked by
the good folk in the village, and disliked by the bad."

"The superior man," he once observed, "is easy to serve, but difficult
to please. Try to please him by the adoption of wrong principles, and
you will fail. Also, when such a one employs others, he uses them
according to their capacity. The inferior man is, on the other hand,
difficult to serve, but easy to please. Try to please him by the
adoption of wrong principles, and you will succeed. And when he employs
others he requires them to be fully prepared for everything."

Again, "The superior man can be high without being haughty. The inferior
man can be haughty if not high."

"The firm, the unflinching, the plain and simple, the slow to speak,"
said he once, "are approximating towards their duty to their
fellow-men."

Tsz-lu asked how he would characterize one who might fitly be called an
educated gentleman. The master replied, "He who can properly be
so-called will have in him a seriousness of purpose, a habit of
controlling himself, and an agreeableness of manner: among his friends
and associates the seriousness and the self-control, and among his
brethren the agreeableness of manner."

"Let good and able men discipline the people for seven years," said the
Master, "and after that they may do to go to war."

But, said he, "To lead an undisciplined people to war--that I call
throwing them away."

BOOK XIV

Good and Bad Government--Miscellaneous Sayings

Yuen Sz asked what might be considered to bring shame on one.

"Pay," said the Master; "pay--ever looking to that, whether the country
be well or badly governed."

"When imperiousness, boastfulness, resentments, and covetousness cease
to prevail among the people, may it be considered that mutual good-will
has been effected?" To this qu