“Arrogance means that one knows how to press forward but not how to draw back… knows something about winning but nothing about losing.”

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“As Lao-tzu says: ‘Know your limits and you’ll suffer no disgrace, know when to stop and you’ll be in no danger.’ Let no man take too much.”

Chapters: 46. Enough

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“Ask questions about everything and investigate everything; things will start to go well when you are no longer fooled by books.”

Chapters: 48. Unlearning

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“Careless handling of one item might bring harm to the whole world, a moment's carelessness damage all future generations.”

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“Drinking and gambling are curses that lessen any man’s mind and strength and waste his substance.”

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“Good artisans concentrating on one specialty, refuse to dissipate their mental energy. This gives strength to their bodies and they often live to be 70 or 80, healthy and skillful as in their youth”

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“I have enjoyed the veneration of my country and the riches of the world; there is no object I do not have, nothing I have not experienced. But now that I have reached old age, I cannot rest easy for a moment. Therefore, I regard the whole country as a worn-out sandal, and all riches as mud and sand.”

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“I have never tired of the Book of Changes and have used it as a source of moral principles; the only thing you must not do is to make this book appear simple for there are meanings here that lie beyond words.”

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“K'ang-hsi had 56 children; one son only however born to an empress who became the center of attention and inevitably became the focus of tangled factional alignments that soured life at court and split the ranks”

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“Kangxi had originally represented himself as a man in pain and a man with doubts [but in the] valedictory edict he emerges only as a shadow, his platitudes enshrined and his forcefulness and anger and honesty and pain all—alike—removed.”

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“Make a practice of quietness and so lengthen the days of your life… If one an get even two or three hours of quiet relaxation, it makes up for days of hardship.”

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“the crudest or simplest people have something of value to say, something one can check through to the source and remember”

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“There are too many men who claim to be pure scholars and yet are stupid and arrogant; we'd be better off with less talk of moral principle and more practice of it.”

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“There is no place for rulers to rest, and no resting place to which they can retreat… I tried to emulate the wise rulers of the Three Dynasties, and desired to bring lasting peace to the whole earth, and make all men happy in their work. For decades I have exhausted all my strength, day after day working with unceasing diligence and intense watchfulness, never resting, never idle.”

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“Think of the profit of all as being the real profit and the mind of the whole country as being the real mind.”

Chapters: 77. Stringing a Bow

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“This [evil practice] is one of the worst habits of great officials, that if they are not recommending their teachers or their friends for high office then they recommend their relations.”

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“When I was a child, everyone praised my archery except for one old teacher; he said I was not good, and it was because of him, the critical one, that I now shoot and ride so well.”

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“When you are young your mind is sharp and penetrating—after you grow up the thoughts scatter and gallop away [...] things you studied as a child are the light of the rising sun; the studies in your maturity a candle.”

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