The                                          The                                        The                                                The                                             The                                           The                                           The                                            The

A poet, as he is the author to others of the highest wisdom, pleasure, virtue, and glory, so he ought personally to be the happiest, the best, the wisest, and the most illustrious of men. As to his glory, let time be challenged to declare whether the fame of any other institutor of human life be comparable to that of a poet. That he is the wisest, the happiest, and the best, inasmuch as he is a poet, is equally incontrovertible: the greatest poets have been men of the most sp

Chapter 57 Govern a country with upright integrity Deploy the military with surprise tactics Take the world with non-interference How do I know this is so? With the following: When there are many restrictions in the world The people become more impoverished When people have many sharp weapons The country becomes more chaotic When people have many clever tricks More strange things occur The more laws are posted The more robbers and thieves there are Therefore the sa

Letter XIV WE have been brought to the idea of such a correlation between the two impulsions that the action of the one establishes and limits at the same time the action of the other, and that each of them, taken in isolation, does arrive at its highest manifestation just because the other is active. No doubt this correlation of the two impulsions is simply a problem advanced by reason, and which man will only be able to solve in the perfection of his being. It is in the s

The functions of the poetical faculty are twofold: by one it creates new materials of knowledge, and power, and pleasure; by the other it engenders in the mind a desire to reproduce and arrange them according to a certain rhythm and order which may be called the beautiful and the good. The cultivation of poetry is never more to be desired than at periods when, from an excess of the selfish and calculating principle, the accumulation of the materials of external life exceed th

Chapter 48 Pursue knowledge, daily gain Pursue Tao, daily loss Loss and more loss Until one reaches unattached action With unattached action, there is nothing one cannot do Take the world by constantly applying non-interference The one who interferes is not qualified to take the world. Chapter 49 The sages have no constant mind They take the mind of the people as their mind Those who are good, I am good to them Those who are not good, I am also good to them Thus the v

Chapter 38 High virtue is not virtuous Therefore it has virtue Low virtue never loses virtue Therefore it has no virtue High virtue takes no contrived action And acts without agenda Low virtue takes contrived action And acts with agenda High benevolence takes contrived action And acts without agenda High righteousness takes contrived action And acts with agenda High etiquette takes contrived action And upon encountering no response Uses arms to pull others The

Chapter 28 Know the masculine, hold to the feminine Be the watercourse of the world Being the watercourse of the world The eternal virtue does not depart Return to the state of the infant Know the white, hold to the black Be the standard of the world Being the standard of the world The eternal virtue does not deviate Return to the state of the boundless Know the honor, hold to the humility Be the valley of the world Being the valley of the world The eternal virtu

Letter XIII ON a first survey, nothing appears more opposed than these two impulsions; one having for its object change, the other immutability, and yet it is these two notions that exhaust the notion of humanity, and a third fundamental impulsion, holding a medium between them, is quite inconceivable. How then shall we re-establish the unity of human nature, a unity that appears completely destroyed by this primitive and radical opposition? I admit these two tendencies are c

I come now to those matters which I have drawn from the ancient mysteries of the Hebrews and here adduce in confirmation of the inviolable Catholic faith. Lest these matters be thought, by those to whom they are unfamiliar, bubbles of the imagination and tales of charlatans, I want everyone to understand what they are and what their true character is; whence they are drawn and who are the illustrious writers who testifying to them; how mysterious they are, and divine and nece

Undoubtedly the promoters of utility, in this limited sense, have their appointed office in society. They follow the footsteps of poets, and copy the sketches of their creations into the book of common life. They make space, and give time. Their exertions are of the highest value, so long as they confine their administration of the concerns of the inferior powers of our nature within the limits due to the superior ones. But whilst the sceptic destroys gross superstitions, let