Zicheng Hong Quotes

#1. Business and scholarship pass away with the person, but the soul is forever like new. Fame and fortune change with the generations, but the spirit is always the same. Enlightened people surely should not exchange the lasting for the ephemeral.

Zicheng Hong

#2. When you meet dishonest people, move them with sincerity. When you meet violent people, affect them with gentility. When you meet warped people, inspire them with justice. Then the whole world enters your forge.

Zicheng Hong

#3. In adversity, everything that surrounds you is a kind of medicine that helps you refine your conduct, yet you are unaware of it. In pleasant situations, you are faced with weapons that will tear you apart, yet you do not realize it.

Zicheng Hong

#4. Unexpected hardship refines people; if you can accept it, both mind and body will benefit. If you cannot accept it, on the other hand, both mind and body will be harmed.

Zicheng Hong

#5. To notice people's deceptions yet not reveal it in words, to bear people's insults without showing any change of attitude-there is endless meaning in this, and also endless function.

Zicheng Hong

#6. Polish what you polish until it is like gold that has been refined a hundred times; anything that is done in a hurry is not deeply developed. Do what you do like a thousand-pound catapult; one who pops off too easily does not accomplish much.

Zicheng Hong

#7. When thoughts arise, as soon as you sense them heading on the road of desire, bring them right back onto the road of reason. Once they arise, notice them, once you notice them, you can change them. This is the key to turning calamity into fortune, rising from death and returning to life.

Zicheng Hong

#8. Soil with a lot of manure in it produces abundant crops; water that is too clear has no fish. Therefore, enlightened people should maintain the capacity to accept impurities and should not be solitary perfectionists.

Zicheng Hong

#9. Even if you can't get rid of the heat, as long as you can get rid of bother with the heat, your body is always on a cool terrace. Even if you can't get rid of poverty, as long as you can get rid of the sadness of poverty, your mind always lives in a comfortable abode.

Zicheng Hong

#10. Even a wild horse can be tamed; even metal that is difficult to work eventually goes into a mold. If you take it easy and do not stir yourself, you will never make any progress. It has been said, "It is no disgrace to have many afflictions: I would worry if there never were any afflictions."

Zicheng Hong

#11. Compromise to please others is not as good as integrity that annoys others. Rather than be praised without being good, it is better to be slandered without being bad.

Zicheng Hong

#12. Those who are broad-minded and considerate are like the spring breeze, warm and nurturing, at show touch all being grow. Those who are envious an d cruel are like the snow of the northlands, stilling and freezing, at whose touch all beings die.

Zicheng Hong

#13. For those who reflect on themselves, everything they encounter is medicine. For those who attack others, every thought is a weapon. One is the way to initiate all good, one is the way to deepen all evil. They are as far apart as sky and earth.

Zicheng Hong

#14. A moment of kindness can produce a mood of harmony between heaven and earth. Purity of heart can leave a fine example for a hundred generations.

Zicheng Hong

#15. When you meet silent and inscrutable people, don't tell them what you are thinking. When you meet irritable and self-serving people, be careful what you say.

Zicheng Hong

#16. A thousand pieces of gold may hardly bring a moment's happiness, but a small favor can cause a lifetime's gratitude. Too much love can turn to enmity, while aloofness can produce joy.

Zicheng Hong

#17. There is much meaning in the word endure. For example, when dealing with unstable human feelings and uneven pathways in life, without endurance to hold you up, you may fall into a pit in the brush.

Zicheng Hong

#18. Valuing unusual conduct is not as good as being careful about ordinary actions.

Zicheng Hong

#19. Generosity should begin lightly and deepen later, fro when it is first rich and then lessens, people forget the kindness. Authority should begin strictly and loosen up later, for if it is loose first and then strict, people will resent the severity.

Zicheng Hong

#20. At dusk the sunset is beautifully bright; at year's end the tangerines are even more fragrant. Therefore, at the end of their road, in their later years, enlightened people should be a hundred times more vital in spirit.

Zicheng Hong

#21. The sickness of indulging desires can be treated, but the sickness of clinging to abstract principles is hard to treat. Obstacles presented by events and objects can be removed, but obstacles presented by social principles are hard to remove.

Zicheng Hong

#22. If those who give are conscious of their own generosity and those who receive feel indebted, they are no longer family but rather strangers doing business.

Zicheng Hong

#23. A clear sunny day can suddenly shift to thunder and lightning, a raging storm can suddenly give way to a bright moonlit night. The weather may be inconstant, but the sky remains the same. The substance of the human mind should also be like this.

Zicheng Hong

#24. Attention is the mind's feet; if you do not control your attention strictly, it runs into misleading pathways.

Zicheng Hong

#25. Public behavior is nurtured in private; earthshaking measures come form careful steps.

Zicheng Hong

#26. When one is not slipshod in small matters, not hypocritical in secret, and not reckless in disappointment, only then is one a true hero.

Zicheng Hong

#27. The eyes and ears, seeing and hearing, are external plunderers; emotions, desires, and opinions are internal plunderers. But if the inner mind is awake and alert, sitting aloof in the middle of it all, then these plunderers change and become members of the household.

Zicheng Hong

#28. If you know that whatever is made inevitable breaks down, you needn't seek too hard for achievement. If you know that all living beings inevitably die, you needn't work too hard on health lore.

Zicheng Hong

#29. A net set up to catch fish may snare a duck; a mantis hunting an insect may itself be set upon by a sparrow. Machinations are hidden within machinations; changes arise beyond changes. So how can wit and cleverness be relied upon?

Zicheng Hong

#30. Those who trust others will find that not everyone is necessarily sincere, but they will be sincere themselves. Those who suspect others will find that not everyone is necessarily deceiving them, but they have already become deceivers themselves.

Zicheng Hong

#31. A grub in filth is dirty, but it changes into a cicada and sips dew in the autumn breeze. Rotting plants have no luster, but they turn into foxfire and glow in the summer moonlight. So we know that purity emerges from impurity, and light is born from darkness.

Zicheng Hong

#32. You should be forgiving when others make mistakes, but not when the mistakes are in you. You should be patient under duress yourself, but not when it affects others.

Zicheng Hong

#33. Those who act on excitement act intermittently; this is hardly the way to avoid regression. Those whose understanding comes from emotional perceptions are as confused as they are enlightened; this is not a lamp that is constantly bright.

Zicheng Hong

#34. When enlightened people are so poor that they cannot help others, if they speak a word to awaken the confused or to resolve a problem, there is also boundless merit in that.

Zicheng Hong

#35. In whatever you do, if you leave a sense of incompleteness, then Creation cannot resent you, ghosts and spirits cannot harm you. If you insist on fulfillment in your work and perfection in achievement, you will become either inwardly deranged or outwardly unsettled.

Zicheng Hong

#36. If you do not join the polluted, then you are pure; if you reject society in search of purity, that is not purity but fanaticism.

Zicheng Hong

#37. One should not seek happiness, just nurture the spirit of joy as the basis of summoning happiness. One should not try to escape misfortune, just get rid of viciousness as a means of avoiding misfortune.

Zicheng Hong

#38. Delicious foods are drugs that will inflame the gut and rot the bones, but there is no harm if one eats moderately. Delightful things are all purveyors of destruction and decadence, but there is no regret if one enjoys them moderately.

Zicheng Hong

#39. People of old deemed freedom from greed precious, and this is how they got beyond the world.

Zicheng Hong

#40. Virtue is the master of talent, talent is the servant of virtue. Talent without virtue is like a house where there is no master and their servant manages its affairs. How can there be no mischief?

Zicheng Hong

#41. Those who have come to an impasse should examine their original intentions; those who have succeeded should note where they are heading.

Zicheng Hong

#42. To get rid of villains and knaves, it is necessary to give them a way out. If you don't give them any leeway at all, they will be like trapped rats. If every way out is closed to them, they will chew up everything good.

Zicheng Hong

#43. The road of truth is broad; set the mind on it, and you feel expansive openness and broad clarity. The road of human desires is narrow; set foot on it, and you see brambles and mire before you.

Zicheng Hong

#44. If you are not lax when at leisure, you will be effective when busy. If you are not absentminded in tranquility, that will be useful in action. If you are not hypocritical in private, that will show up in public.

Zicheng Hong

#45. The workings of heaven are unfathomable-sometimes encouraging, sometimes suppressing. All this makes sport of heroes and tumbles the great. Enlightened people take adversity in stride and are prepared for trouble even when at ease; therefore, they are not at the mercy of fate.

Zicheng Hong

#46. When water isn't rippled, it is naturally still. When a mirror isn't clouded, it is clear of itself. So the mind is not to be cleared; get rid of what muddles it, and its clarity will spontaneously appear. Pleasure need not be sought; get rid of what pains you, and pleasure is naturally there.

Zicheng Hong

#47. Our body is a small universe; to regulate emotions and feelings is a way of harmonization.

Zicheng Hong

#48. Those who turn things around by themselves do not rejoice at gain or grieve over loss; the whole world is the range they roam. Those who are themselves used by things hate it when events go against them and love it when they go their way; the slightest thing can create binding entanglements.

Zicheng Hong

#49. Conceit and arrogance are acquired states of mind. Conquer acquired states of mind, and basic sanity can unfold. Passion and willfulness are part of false consciousness; erase false consciousness, and true consciousness will appear.

Zicheng Hong

#50. Even if you do no work that is particularly lofty or far-reaching, if you can shed mundane feelings, that is a great achievement. Even if you do not strive much for progress in learning, if you can minimize the influence things have on you, you will soar into the realm of sages.

Zicheng Hong

#51. People's shortcomings should be treated with tact; if you expose them crudely, this is attacking weakness with a weakness. When people are stubborn, it requires skill to influence them; if you treat them with anger and spite, this is treating stubbornness with stubbornness.

Zicheng Hong

#52. Observe people with cool eyes, listen to their words with cool ears. Confront feelings with cool emotions, reflect on principles with a cool mind.

Zicheng Hong

#53. If a poor house is well kept, or a poor girl well groomed, there is elegance if not beauty. If good people should come upon hard times, why should they immediately give up on themselves?

Zicheng Hong

#54. You should not be too much of a purist in your way of life, for you need to be able to accept all that is foul. You should not be too clear in making distinctions in social interactions, for you need to accept everyone whether they are good or bad, wise or foolish.

Zicheng Hong