Standing once on the bank of a mountain stream, he said (musingly), "Like this are those that pass away--no cessation, day or night!" Other sayings:-- "Take an illustration from the making of a hill. A simple basketful is wanting to complete it, and the work stops. So I stop short. "Take an illustration from the levelling of the ground. Suppose again just one basketful is left, when the work has so progressed. There I desist! "Ah! it was Hwúi, was it not? who, when I had given him his lesson, was the unflagging one! "Alas for Hwúi! I saw him ever making progress. I never saw him stopping short. "Blade, but no bloom--or else bloom, but no produce; aye, that is the way with some! "Reverent regard is due to youth. How know we what difference there may be in them in the future from what they are now? Yet when they have reached the age of forty or fifty, and are still unknown in the world, then indeed they are no more worthy of such regard. "Can any do otherwise than assent to words said to them by way of correction? Only let them reform by such advice, and it will then be reckoned valuable. Can any be other than pleased with words of gentle suasion? Only let them comply with them fully, and such also will be accounted valuable. With those who are pleased without so complying, and those who assent but do not reform, I can do nothing at all. "Give prominent place to loyalty and sincerity. "Have no associates in study who are not advanced somewhat like yourself. "When you have erred, be not afraid to correct yourself. "It may be possible to seize and carry off the chief commander of a large army, but not possible so to rob one poor fellow of his will. "One who stands--clad in hempen robe, the worse for wear--among others clad in furs of fox and badger, and yet unabashed--'tis Tsz-lu, that, is it not?" Tsz-lu used always to be humming over the lines-- "From envy and enmity free, What deed doth he other than good?" "How should such a rule of life," asked the Master, "be sufficient to make any one good?" "When the year grows chilly, we know the pine and cypress are the last to fade. "The wise escape doubt; the good-hearted, trouble; the bold, apprehension. "Some may study side by side, and yet be asunder when they come to the logic of things. Some may go on together in this latter course, but be wide apart in the standards they reach in it. Some, again, may together reach the same standard, and yet be diverse in weight of character." "The blossom is out on the cherry tree, With a flutter on every spray. Dost think that my thoughts go not out to thee? Ah, why art thou far away!" Commenting on these lines the Master said, "There can hardly have been much 'thought going out,' What does distance signify?"