The Duke of Sheh in a conversation with Confucius said, “There are some straightforward persons in my neighborhood.  If a father has stolen a sheep, the son will give evidence against him.”

“Straightforward people in my neighborhood are different from those,” said Confucius.  “The father will hold a thing secret on his son’s behalf, and the son does the same for his father.  They are on their way to becoming straightforward.”

Fan Ch’i was asking him about duty to one’s fellow-men.  “Be courteous,” he replied, “in your private sphere; be serious in any duty you take in hand to do; be leal-hearted in your intercourse with others.  Even though you were to go amongst the wild tribes, it would not be right for you to neglect these duties.”

In answer to Tsz-kung, who asked, “how he would characterize one who could fitly be called ‘learned official,’” the Master said, “He may be so-called who in his private life is affected with a sense of his own unworthiness, and who, when sent on a mission to any quarter of the empire, would not disgrace his prince’s commands.”

“May I presume,” said his questioner, “to ask what sort you would put next to such?”

“Him who is spoken of by his kinsmen as a dutiful son, and whom the folks of his neighborhood call’ good brother.’”

“May I still venture to ask whom you would place next in order?”

“Such as are sure to be true to their word, and effective in their work—­who are given to hammering, as it were, upon one note—­of inferior calibre indeed, but fit enough, I think, to be ranked next.”

“How would you describe those who are at present in the government service?”

“Ugh! mere peck and panier men!—­not worth taking into the reckoning.”

Once he remarked, “If I cannot get via media men to impart instruction to, then I must of course take the impetuous and undisciplined!  The impetuous ones will at least go forward and lay hold on things; and the undisciplined have at least something in them which needs to be brought out.”

“The Southerners,” 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.”