Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 19
Admonition on Thinking思箴
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 19 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.
我卒作事。悔不思之。思而後行。寧有禍隨。我卒吐言。悔不復思。思而後吐。寧有辱追。思之勿遽。遽則多違。思之勿深。深則多疑。商酌折衷。三思最宜。
I act suddenly in some matter, and then repent that I did not think. If one thinks and then acts, how should misfortune follow? I blurt out a word suddenly, and then again repent that I did not think. If one thinks and then speaks, how should disgrace come after? Think, but do not hurry; hurry, and much goes wrong. Think, but not too deeply; go too deep, and there is much doubt. Weigh them and strike the middle: to think three times is the most fitting of all.