Quotes By Xun Zi

If the blood humor is too strong and robust, calm it with balance and harmony.

If the gentleman has ability, he is magnanimous, generous, tolerant, and straightforward, through which he opens the way to instruct others.

There are successful scholars, public-spirited scholars, upright scholars, cautious scholars, and those who are merely petty men.

When you concentrate on agriculture and industry and are frugal in expenditures, Heaven cannot impoverish your state.

Thus, anybody who follows this nature and gives way its states will be led into quarrels and conflicts, and go against the conventions and rules of society, and will end up a criminal.

Since the nature of people is bad, to become corrected they must be taught by teachers and to be orderly they must acquire ritual and moral principles.

Pride and excess bring disaster for man.

When you locate good in yourself, approve of it with determination. When you locate evil in yourself, despise it as something detestable.

I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.

Sacrifices are concerned with the feelings of devotion and longing.

In antiquity the sage kings recognized that men's nature is bad and that their tendencies were not being corrected and their lawlessness controlled.

Music is a fantastic peacekeeper of the world, it is integral to harmony, and it is a required fundamental of human emotion.

Those whose character is mean and vicious will rouse others to animosity against them.

I once tried thinking for an entire day, but I found it less valuable than one moment of study.

The rigid cause themselves to be broken; the pliable cause themselves to be bound.

The person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere.

Human nature is such that people are born with a love of profit If they follow these inclinations, they will struggle and snatch from each other, and inclinations to defer or yield will die.

A person is born with a liking for profit.

A person is born with feelings of envy and hate. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to violence and crime, and any sense of loyalty and good faith will be abandoned.

In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.

When a man sees something desirable, he must reflect on the fact that with time it could come to involve what is detestable. When he sees something that is beneficial, he should reflect that sooner or later it, too, could come to involve harm.

Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity.

Human nature refers to what is in people but which they cannot study or work at achieving.

Thus, that one can find no place to walk through the breadth of the earth is not because the earth is not tranquil but because the danger to every step of the traveler lies generally with words.

If the impulse to daring and bravery is too fierce and violent, stay it with guidance and instruction.

When people lack teachers, their tendencies are not corrected; when they do not have ritual and moral principles, then their lawlessness is not controlled.

If what the heart approves conforms to proper patterns, then even if one's desires are many, what harm would they be to good order?

Human nature is what Heaven supplies.

Quarreling over food and drink, having neither scruples nor shame, not knowing right from wrong, not trying to avoid death or injury, not fearful of greater strength or of greater numbers, greedily aware only of food and drink - such is the bravery of the dog and boar.

Whether the gentleman is capable or not, he is loved all the same; conversely the petty man is loathed all the same.