d, If shouldering a whip were a sure road to riches
I should turn carter; but since there is no sure road, I tread the
path I love.

12. The Master gave heed to abstinence, war and sickness.

13. When he was in Ch'i, for three months after hearing the Shao
played, the Master knew not the taste of flesh.

I did not suppose, he said, that music could reach such heights.

14. Jan Yu said, Is the Master for the lord of Wei?[66]

[Footnote 66: The grandson of Duke Ling, the husband of Nan-tzu. His
father had been driven from the country for plotting to kill Nan-tzu.
When Duke Ling died, he was succeeded by his grandson, who opposed by
force his father's attempts to seize the throne.]

I shall ask him, said Tzu-kung.

He went in, and said, What kind of men were Po-yi[67] and Shu-ch'i?

Worthy men of yore, said the Master.

Did they rue the past?

They sought love and found it; what had they to rue?

Tzu-kung went out, and said, The Master is not for him.

15. The Master said, Eating coarse rice and drinking water, with bent
arm for pillow, we may be merry; but ill-gotten wealth and honours are
to me a wandering cloud.

16. The Master said, Given a few more years, making fifty for learning
the Yi,[68] I might be freed from gross faults.

[Footnote 67: See Book V, Sec. 22.]

[Footnote 68: An abstruse, ancient classic, usually called the Book of
Changes.]

17. The Master liked to talk of poetry, history, and the upkeep of
courtesy. Of all these he liked to talk.

18. The Duke of She asked Tzu-lu about Confucius.

Tzu-lu did not answer.

The Master said, Why didst thou not say, He is a man that forgets to
eat in his eagerness, whose sorrows are forgotten in gladness, who
knows not that age draws near?

19. The Master said, I was not born to wisdom: I loved the past, and
sought it earnestly there.

20. The Master never talked of goblins, strength, disorder, or
spirits.

21. The Master said, Walking three together I am sure of teachers. I
pick out the good and follow it; I see the bad and shun it.

22. The Master said, Heaven begat the mind in me; what can Huan
T'ui[69] do to me?

23. The Master said, My two-three boys, do ye think I hide things? I
hide nothing from you. I am a man that keeps none of his doings from
his two-three boys.

24. The Master taught four things: art, conduct, faithfulness and
truth.

25. The Master said, A holy man I shall not live to see; enough could
I find a gentleman