Warnings for Ruler and Minister君臣鑒戒第六
貞觀三年，太宗謂侍臣曰：「君臣本同治亂，共安危，若主納忠諫，臣進直言，斯故君臣合契，古來所重。若君自賢，臣不匡正，欲不危亡，不可得也。君失其國，臣亦不能獨全其家。至如隋煬帝暴虐，臣下鉗口，卒令不聞其過，遂至滅亡，虞世基等尋亦誅死。前事不遠，朕與卿等可得不慎，無為後所嗤！」
In the third year of Zhenguan, Taizong said to the ministers in attendance:
"Ruler and subject share order and disorder alike, and safety and danger together. If the ruler takes in loyal remonstrance and the subject offers straight words, then ruler and subject are in accord, and this is what the men of old held weighty. If the ruler calls himself worthy and his subjects do not set him right, then though he wish to escape danger and ruin, he cannot. When a ruler loses his state, his subjects cannot keep their own houses whole either.
"As for the cruelty of Emperor Yang of Sui, his ministers held bits in their mouths, and in the end he was never made to hear of his own faults. So he came to destruction, and Yu Shiji and the rest were soon put to death as well. What went before is not far off. Can I and you, my lords, fail to be careful? Do not become a thing for later men to laugh at."
貞觀四年，太宗論隋日。魏徵對曰：「臣往在隋朝，會聞有盜發，煬帝令於士澄捕逐。但有疑似，苦加拷掠，枉承賊者二千餘人，並令同日斬決。大理丞張元濟怪之，試尋其狀，乃有六七人，盜發之日，先禁他所，被放才出，亦遭推勘，不勝苦痛，自誣行盜。元濟因此更事究尋，二千人內惟九人逗遛不明。官人有諳識者，就九人內四人非賊。有司以煬帝已令斬決，遂不執奏，並殺之。」太宗曰：「非是煬帝無道，臣下亦不盡心，須相匡諫，不避誅戮，豈得惟行諂佞，茍求悅譽。君臣如此，何得不敗？朕賴公等共相輔佐，遂令囹圄空虛，願公等善始克終，恒如今日！」
In the fourth year of Zhenguan, Taizong was speaking of the days of Sui. Wei Zheng answered:
"When I was in the Sui court long ago, word came that robbers had risen. Emperor Yang ordered Yu Shicheng to hunt them down. Wherever there was so much as a likeness of guilt, he laid on cruel beatings, and more than two thousand men wrongly took the name of robber upon themselves. He ordered them all beheaded on the same day. Zhang Yuanji, the assistant in the court of judicial review, thought this strange and looked into the facts. He found six or seven men who on the day of the robbery had been shut up in another place and had only just been let out. They too were examined under torture, and unable to bear the pain they falsely charged themselves with robbery. Yuanji therefore searched the matter through again, and of the two thousand only nine were doubtful and unclear. Among the officials there were men who knew them, and of those nine, four were not robbers. But the office in charge held that Emperor Yang had already ordered the beheading, and so it did not hold the matter back and report to the throne. They killed them all."
Taizong said:
"It was not only that Emperor Yang was without the way. His ministers too did not give their whole hearts. They should have set one another right and remonstrated, and not shrunk from execution. How could they do nothing but flatter and fawn, seeking to please and to be praised? When ruler and subject are like this, how can there be no ruin? I have leaned on you, my lords, to help me together, and so the prisons stand empty. I wish you to begin well and carry it through to the end, and to be always as you are today."
貞觀六年，太宗謂侍臣曰：「朕聞周、秦初得天下，其事不異。然周則惟善是務，積功累德，所以能保八百之基。秦乃恣其奢淫，好行刑罰，不過二世而滅。豈非為善者福祚延長，為惡者降年不永？朕又聞桀、紂，帝王也，以匹夫比之，則以為辱。顏、閔匹夫也，以帝王比之，則以為榮。此亦帝王深恥也。朕每將此事以為鑒戒，常恐不逮，為人所笑。」魏徵對曰：「臣聞魯哀公謂孔子曰：『有人好忘者，移宅乃忘其妻。』孔子曰：『又有好忘甚於此者，丘見桀、紂之君乃忘其身。』願陛下每以此為慮，庶免後人笑爾！」
In the sixth year of Zhenguan, Taizong said to the ministers in attendance:
"I have heard that when Zhou and Qin first won the world, what they did was not different. Yet Zhou worked at nothing but goodness, piling up merit and heaping up virtue, and so it could hold its foundation for eight hundred years. Qin gave free rein to its extravagance and lust and loved to use punishments, and it perished before it had passed two generations. Is it not so that he who does good has blessing that reaches far, and he who does evil is granted no length of years?
"I have heard too that Jie and King Zhou of Shang were emperors, yet to liken a common man to them is taken as a disgrace, and that Yan Hui and Min Ziqian were common men, yet to liken an emperor to them is taken as an honor. This too is a deep shame for an emperor. I always take this matter as a mirror and a warning, and I am always afraid that I fall short and become a thing for men to laugh at."
Wei Zheng answered:
"I have heard that Duke Ai of Lu said to Confucius, 'There is a man so forgetful that he moved house and forgot his wife.' Confucius said, 'There are men who forget worse than that. I have seen rulers like Jie and King Zhou of Shang, and they forgot their own persons.' I wish that Your Majesty would hold this always as a care. Then you will be spared the laughter of later men."
貞觀十四年，太宗以高昌平，召侍臣賜宴於兩儀殿，謂房玄齡曰：「高昌若不失臣禮，豈至滅亡？朕平此一國，甚懷危懼，惟當戒驕逸以自防，納忠謇以自正。黜邪佞，用賢良，不以小人之言而議君子，以此慎守，庶幾於獲安也。」魏徵進曰：「臣觀古來帝王撥亂創業，必自戒慎，采芻蕘之議，從忠讜之言。天下既安，則恣情肆欲，甘樂諂諛，惡聞正諫。張子房，漢王計畫之臣，及高祖為天子，將廢嫡立庶，子房曰：『今日之事，非口舌所能爭也。』終不敢復有開說。況陛下功德之盛，以漢祖方之，彼不足準。即位十有五年，聖德光被，今又平殄高昌。屢以安危系意，方欲納用忠良，開直言之路，天下幸甚。昔齊桓公與管仲、鮑叔牙、寧戚四人飲，桓公謂叔牙曰：『盍起為寡人壽乎？』叔牙奉觴而起曰：『願公無忘出在莒時，使管仲無忘束縛於魯時，使寧戚無忘飯牛車下時。』桓公避席而謝曰：『寡人與二大夫能無忘夫子之言，則社稷不危矣！』」太宗謂徵曰：「朕必不敢忘布衣時，公不得忘叔牙之為人也。」
In the fourteenth year of Zhenguan, Gaochang having been pacified, Taizong called the ministers in attendance and gave them a feast in the Hall of Two Principles. He said to Fang Xuanling:
"If Gaochang had not failed in the rites of a subject, how would it have come to destruction? I have pacified this one kingdom, and I hold great danger and dread in my heart. I must only guard myself by warning against pride and idleness, and set myself right by taking in loyal and straight words. I will put down the crooked and the fawning and use the worthy and the good, and I will not weigh a gentleman by the words of a small man. If I keep watch in this way, I shall be near to safety."
Wei Zheng came forward and said:
"I have observed that from of old, when emperors put down disorder and opened their enterprise, they always warned and restrained themselves. They gathered even the talk of the grass cutters and the woodsmen, and they followed loyal and straight words. Once the world was at peace, they gave rein to their feelings and loosed their desires. They took sweet pleasure in flattery and hated to hear upright remonstrance. Zhang Zifang was the minister who laid the plans for the King of Han. When Gaozu had become the Son of Heaven and was about to put aside the son of his wife and set up the son of a concubine, Zifang said, 'What is at issue today is not a thing that lips and tongue can contend for.' And to the end he did not dare to open the matter again.
"How much more with Your Majesty, whose merit and virtue are abundant. Set the founder of Han beside you and he is no measure. You have been on the throne fifteen years. Your sagely virtue shines and covers all, and now you have pacified and destroyed Gaochang. Again and again you have bound safety and danger to your mind, and now you would take in and employ the loyal and the good and open the road of straight words. The world is most fortunate.
"Long ago Duke Huan of Qi drank with Guan Zhong, Bao Shuya and Ning Qi, the four of them together. Duke Huan said to Shuya, 'Why do you not rise and drink long life to me?' Shuya lifted his cup and rose and said, 'I wish that my lord may not forget the time when he was out in Ju, that Guan Zhong may not forget the time when he was bound in Lu, and that Ning Qi may not forget the time when he fed the oxen under his cart.' Duke Huan left his mat and thanked him, saying, 'If I and my two great officers can keep from forgetting your words, the altars of the land will not be in danger.'"
Taizong said to Wei Zheng:
"I will surely not dare to forget the days when I wore plain cloth. And you must not forget the kind of man Shuya was."
貞觀十四年，特進魏徵上疏曰：
In the fourteenth year of Zhenguan, Wei Zheng, who held the honorary rank of specially advanced, sent up a memorial:
臣聞君為元首，臣作股肱，齊契同心，合而成體，體或不備，未有成人。然則首雖尊高。必資手足以成體，君雖明哲，必藉股肱以致治。《禮》云：「民以君為心，君以民為體，心莊則體舒，心肅則容敬。」《書》云：「元首明哉，股肱良哉，庶事康哉。」「元首叢脞哉，股肱惰哉，萬事墮哉。」然則委棄股肱，獨任胸臆，具體成理，非所聞也。
I have heard that the ruler is the head and his ministers are the arms and legs, that their purpose is matched and their hearts are one, and that joined together they make one body. If a body lacks any part, there is no whole man. So although the head is high and honored, it must rely on hands and feet to make a body, and although a ruler is clear-sighted and wise, he must borrow the arms and legs to bring about good order.
The Liji says, "The people take the ruler for their heart, and the ruler takes the people for his body. When the heart is grave, the body is at ease. When the heart is stern, the bearing is respectful." The Shangshu says, "When the head is clear-sighted, the arms and legs are good, and all affairs are at rest," and it says, "When the head is taken up with trifles, the arms and legs are idle, and ten thousand affairs fall to ruin." That being so, of a man who casts away his arms and legs and trusts his own breast alone, and yet has a whole body and brings his reason to completion, I have never heard.
夫君臣相遇，自古為難。以石投水，千載一合，以水投石，無時不有。其能開至公之道，申天下之用，內盡心膂，外竭股肱，和若鹽梅，固同金石者，非惟高位厚秩，在於禮之而已。昔周文王遊於鳳皇之墟，襪系解，顧左右莫可使者，乃自結之。豈周文之朝盡為俊乂，聖明之代獨無君子者哉？但知與不知，禮與不禮耳！是以伊尹，有莘之媵臣，韓信，項氏之亡命，殷湯致禮，定王業於南巢，漢祖登壇，成帝功於垓下。若夏桀不棄於伊尹，項羽垂恩於韓信，寧肯敗已成之國為滅亡之虜乎？又微子，骨肉也，受茅土於宋，箕子，良臣也，陳《洪範》於周。仲尼稱其仁，莫有非之者。《禮記》稱：「魯穆公問於子思曰：『為舊君反服，古歟？』子思曰：『古之君子，進人以禮，退人以禮，故有舊君反服之禮也。今之君子，進人若將加諸膝，退人若將隊諸淵。毋為戎首，不亦善乎，又何反服之禮之有？』」齊景公問於晏子曰：「忠臣之事君如之何？」晏子對曰：「有難不死，出亡不送。」公曰：「裂地以封之，疏爵而待之，有難不死，出亡不送，何也？」晏子曰：「言而見用，終身無難，臣何死焉？諫而見納，終身不亡，臣何送焉？若言不見用，有難而死，是妄死也。諫不見納，出亡而送，是詐忠也。」《春秋左氏傳》曰：「崔杼弒齊莊公，晏子立於崔氏之門外，其人曰：『死乎？』曰：『獨吾君也乎哉！吾死也？』曰：『行乎？』曰：『吾罪也乎哉！吾亡也？故君為社稷死，則死之，為社稷亡，則亡之。若為己死，為己亡，非其親暱，誰敢任之。』門啟而入，枕屍股而哭，興，三踴而出。」孟子曰：「君視臣如手足，臣視君如腹心；君視臣如犬馬，臣視君如國人；君視臣如糞土，臣視君如寇讎。」雖臣之事君無二志，至於去就之節，當緣恩之厚薄，然則為人主者，安可以無禮於下哉！
The meeting of ruler and subject has been hard from of old. A meeting like a stone thrown into water comes once in a thousand years. A meeting like water thrown against a stone is there at every hour. To open the way of utmost fairness, to draw out the usefulness of all under heaven, to give the whole of the heart and the backbone within and to spend the arms and legs without, to blend like salt and plum and to stand firm like metal and stone: this does not come from high place and thick pay. It lies in treating men with courtesy, and in nothing else.
Long ago King Wen of Zhou was walking at the old site of Fenghuang when the tie of his stocking came loose. He looked about him and there was no one he could set to it, and so he tied it himself. How could it be that the court of King Wen was made up wholly of outstanding men, and that in a sagely and bright age there was no gentleman at all? It was only a matter of knowing and not knowing, of courtesy and no courtesy. So Yi Yin was a servant who came with a bride out of the house of Youshen, and Han Xin was a fugitive from the house of Xiang. Tang of Yin gave Yi Yin the fullness of courtesy and settled the royal enterprise at Nanchao. Gaozu of Han raised Han Xin upon the altar and completed the imperial work at Gaixia. If Jie of Xia had not cast off Yi Yin, and if Xiang Yu had let his kindness fall upon Han Xin, would they have been willing to wreck a state already made and become the captives of ruin?
Again, Weizi was of the same flesh and bone as his ruler, and he received land in Song. Jizi was a good minister, and he set out the Hongfan for Zhou. Zhongni praised their humanity, and there was no one who held them wrong.
The Liji states: "Duke Mu of Lu asked Zisi, 'Is it the way of old to put on mourning again for a former lord?' Zisi said, 'The gentlemen of old advanced men with courtesy and dismissed men with courtesy, and so there was the rite of putting on mourning again for a former lord. The gentlemen of today, when they advance a man, do it as though they would set him on their knees, and when they dismiss him, as though they would drop him into a gulf. If he does not lead the attack against them, is that not good enough? What rite of putting on mourning again should there be?'"
Duke Jing of Qi asked Yanzi, "How does a loyal minister serve his lord?" Yanzi answered, "When trouble comes he does not die for it, and when his lord flees the state he does not see him off." The duke said, "Land is cut off and given him in fief, and rank is set apart to treat him well. Why then does he not die when trouble comes, and not see his lord off when he flees?" Yanzi said, "If his words were used, there would be no trouble to the end of his days, so for what should he die? If his remonstrance was taken in, his lord would not flee to the end of his days, so whom should he see off? If his words were not used and he dies when trouble comes, that is a death for nothing. If his remonstrance was not taken in and he sees his lord off in flight, that is a false loyalty."
The Chunqiu Zuoshi zhuan says: "Cui Zhu killed Duke Zhuang of Qi, and Yanzi stood outside the gate of the house of Cui. His man said, 'Will you die for him?' He said, 'Was he my lord alone? Why should I die?' 'Will you go away?' He said, 'Is the crime mine? Why should I flee? If a lord dies for the altars of the land, his subject dies for him, and if he flees for the altars of the land, his subject flees for him. But if he died for his own sake and fled for his own sake, who would dare take it on but one he loved and kept close?' The gate was opened and he went in. He pillowed the dead body on his thigh and wailed. He rose, leapt three times, and went out."
Mencius said, "When the ruler looks on his ministers as his hands and feet, the ministers look on the ruler as their belly and heart. When the ruler looks on his ministers as dogs and horses, the ministers look on the ruler as a man passing on the road. When the ruler looks on his ministers as dung and earth, the ministers look on the ruler as a foe."
A minister serves his lord with no second heart. Yet when it comes to the measure of leaving or staying, he follows the thickness or thinness of the kindness shown him. That being so, how can one who is lord of men be without courtesy toward those below?
竊觀在朝群臣，當主樞機之寄者，或地鄰秦、晉，或業與經綸，並立事立功，皆一時之選，處之衡軸，為任重矣。任之雖重，信之未篤，則人或自疑。人或自疑，則心懷茍且。心懷茍且，則節義不立。節義不立，則名教不興。名教不興，而可與固太平之基，保七百之祚，未之有也。又聞國家重惜功臣，不念舊惡，方之前聖，一無所間。然但寬於大事，急於小罪，臨時責怒，未免愛憎之心，不可以為政。君嚴其禁，臣或犯之，況上啟其源，下必有甚，川壅而潰，其傷必多，欲使凡百黎元，何所措其手足！此則君開一源，下生百端之變，無不亂者也。《禮記》曰：「愛而知其惡，憎而知其善。」若憎而不知其善，則為善者必懼。愛而不知其惡，則為惡者實繁。《詩》曰：「君子如怒，亂庶遄沮。」然則古人之震怒，將以懲惡，當今之威罰，所以長奸，此非唐、虞之心也，非禹、湯之事也。《書》曰：「撫我則後，虐我則讎。」荀卿子曰：「君，舟也。民，水也。水所以載舟，亦所以覆舟。」故孔子曰：「魚失水則死，水失魚猶為水也。」故唐、虞戰戰栗栗，日慎一日。安可不深思之乎？安可不熟慮之乎？
I have quietly watched the body of ministers at court. Those who bear the charge of the pivot of government are in some cases neighbors to the throne by marriage, as Qin and Jin were, and in some cases have shared in the ordering of the realm. All of them have set up deeds and set up merit, and all were the chosen of their time. They have been placed at the balance beam and the axle, and their charge is heavy. Though the charge is heavy, if trust in them is not deep, then men may come to doubt themselves. When men doubt themselves, their hearts hold a wish to get by. When hearts hold a wish to get by, integrity and right do not stand. When integrity and right do not stand, name and teaching do not rise. And that a man should make firm the foundation of great peace and keep a blessing of seven hundred years while name and teaching have not risen, this has never been.
I have heard too that the state greatly cherishes the ministers of merit and does not hold old wrongs in mind. Set beside the sages of former times, there is nothing at all to come between. Yet you are wide in great matters and hasty over small offenses, and when the moment comes you rebuke and grow angry, and you do not escape a heart of liking and disliking. Government cannot be carried on in this way. Though a ruler makes his prohibitions strict, his ministers may still break them. How much more when the one above opens the source, for below there will surely be worse. When a river is dammed it bursts, and the harm is certain to be great. Where then are all the common people to set their hands and feet? Here the ruler opens one source and a hundred kinds of change are born below, and there is no case in which this does not end in disorder.
The Liji says, "Love a man and know his faults; hate a man and know his good." If you hate a man and do not know his good, then those who do good will surely be afraid. If you love a man and do not know his faults, then those who do evil will truly multiply. The Shi jing says, "If the gentleman is angry, disorder will soon be stopped." So the anger of the men of old was meant to punish evil, while the awe and the punishment of today are what make wickedness grow. This is not the heart of Yao and Shun; it is not the work of Yu and Tang.
The Shangshu says, "He who soothes me is my lord; he who is cruel to me is my foe." Master Xun Qing said, "The ruler is the boat. The people are the water. Water is what bears the boat up, and water is what overturns it." And so Confucius said, "When a fish loses the water it dies. When water loses the fish it is water still." That is why Yao and Shun trembled and shook, and were careful one day after another. How can this not be thought on deeply? How can this not be weighed with care?
夫委大臣以大體，責小臣以小事，為國之常也，為治之道也。今委之以職，則重大臣而輕小臣；至於有事，則信小臣而疑大臣。信其所輕，疑其所重，將求至治豈可得乎？又政貴有恒，不求屢易。今或責小臣以大體，或責大臣以小事，小臣乘非所據，大臣失其所守，大臣或以小過獲罪，小臣或以大體受罰。職非其位，罰非其辜，欲其無私，求其盡力，不亦難乎？小臣不可委以大事，大臣不可責以小罪。任以大官，求其細過，刀筆之吏，順旨承風，舞文弄法，曲成其罪。自陳也，則以為心不伏辜；不言也，則以為所犯皆實。進退惟谷，莫能自明，則茍求免禍。大臣茍免，則譎詐萌生。譎詐萌生，則矯偽成俗。矯偽成俗，則不可以臻至治矣！
To entrust great officers with the great body of affairs and to hold lesser officers to small matters is the constant rule of a state and the way of good government. Now when you give out office, you make the great officers weighty and the lesser officers light; but when something happens, you trust the lesser officers and doubt the great. You trust those you count light and doubt those you count weighty. Though you seek the highest order, how can you get it?
Government prizes constancy too, and does not seek frequent change. Now you sometimes hold a lesser officer to account for the great body of affairs, and sometimes hold a great officer to account for a small matter. The lesser officer rides in a place that is not his, and the great officer loses what he was set to keep. A great officer may be found guilty over a slight fault, and a lesser officer may be punished over the great body of affairs. The charge is not his post, and the punishment is not his offense. To wish them free of private interest and to ask them to spend all their strength, is that not hard?
Lesser officers cannot be entrusted with great affairs, and great officers cannot be held to account for small offenses. Give a man high office and then hunt for his petty faults, and the clerks of brush and knife will follow your will and take the wind, playing with words and toying with the law until they bend his case into a crime. If he speaks for himself, it is taken that his heart does not bow to his guilt. If he says nothing, it is taken that all he is charged with is true. Whether he goes forward or back he is hemmed in, and he can make nothing clear about himself, and so he seeks any way at all to escape the harm. When great officers seek escape in any way at all, deceit and cunning sprout. When deceit and cunning sprout, pretense and falsehood become the custom. When pretense and falsehood become the custom, the highest order cannot be reached.
又委任大臣，欲其盡力，每官有所避忌不言，則為不盡。若舉得其人，何嫌於故舊。若舉非其任，何貴於疏遠。待之不盡誠信，何以責其忠恕哉！臣雖或有失之，君亦未為得也。夫上之不信於下，必以為下無可信矣。若必下無可信，則上亦有可疑矣！《禮》曰：「上人疑，則百姓惑。下難知，則君長勞。」上下相疑，則不可以言至治矣。當今群臣之內，遠在一方，流言三至而不投杼者，臣竊思度，未見其人。夫以四海之廣，士庶之眾，豈無一二可信之人哉？蓋信之則無不可，疑之則無可信者，豈獨臣之過乎？夫以一介庸夫結為交友，以身相許，死且不渝，況君臣契合，寄同魚水。若君為堯、舜，臣為稷、契，豈有遇小事則變志，見小利則易心哉！此雖下之立忠未有明著，亦由上懷不信，待之過薄之所致也。豈君使臣以禮，臣事君以忠乎？以陛下之聖明，以當今之功業，誠能博求時俊，上下同心，則三皇可追而四，五帝可俯而六矣。夏、殷、周、漢，夫何足數。」
Again, you entrust your great officers in order that they may spend all their strength; and if in each office there is something they shun and do not speak of, then their strength is not spent. If the man put forward is the right man, why should an old friend be shunned? If the man put forward is not fit for the charge, what is the worth of his being distant and unconnected? If you do not treat them with the fullness of sincerity and trust, how can you require of them loyalty and consideration? The minister may be at fault in this, but the ruler has not done well either.
When the one above does not trust those below, he must hold that there is no one below to be trusted. If there is truly no one below to be trusted, then there is something above to be doubted as well. The Liji says, "When the man above doubts, the people are bewildered. When those below are hard to know, the ruler is worn out." When above and below doubt each other, the highest order cannot be spoken of.
Among the body of ministers today, I have quietly weighed who, being far away in some quarter, would not throw down the shuttle when slander had come three times; and I do not see the man. With the four seas so wide and officers and commoners so many, how could there be no one or two men to be trusted? If you trust them, there is nothing that cannot be; if you doubt them, there is no one to be trusted. Is the fault then the minister's alone?
Even two plain and common men who bind themselves as friends pledge their own persons to each other and do not change in death. How much more when ruler and subject are matched in purpose and rest on each other as fish and water. If the ruler is a Yao or a Shun and the minister a Houji or a Xie, how should they change their purpose when they meet a small matter, or alter their hearts when they see a small gain? This comes in part because the loyalty set up below has not yet been clearly shown. But it comes also because the one above holds distrust in his heart and treats them far too thinly. Is this the ruler using his ministers with courtesy and the ministers serving their ruler with loyalty?
With Your Majesty's sagely brightness and with the achievement of this present age, if you can truly seek far and wide for the best men of the time, and if above and below are one in heart, then you may follow the Three Sovereigns and make a fourth with them, and bend down to the Five Emperors and make a sixth. As for Xia, Yin, Zhou and Han, what are they worth counting?
太宗深嘉納之。
Taizong praised it deeply and took it in.
貞觀十六年，太宗問特進魏徵曰：「朕克己為政，仰企前烈。至於積德、累仁、豐功、厚利，四者常以為稱首，朕皆庶幾自勉。人苦不能自見，不知朕之所行，何等優劣？」徵對曰：「德、仁、功、利，陛下兼而行之。然則內平禍亂，外除戎狄，是陛下之功。安諸黎元，各有生業，是陛下之利。由此言之，功利居多，惟德與仁，願陛下自強不息，必可致也。」
In the sixteenth year of Zhenguan, Taizong asked Wei Zheng, the specially advanced:
"I master myself in governing, and I look up to the bright traces of those who went before. Piling up virtue, heaping up humanity, making merit abundant and making benefit thick: these four are always named first, and I hope to press myself toward them all. A man's trouble is that he cannot see himself. I do not know which of the things I have done are the better and which the worse."
Wei Zheng answered:
"Virtue, humanity, merit and benefit, Your Majesty carries them all out together. The putting down of calamity and disorder within, and the clearing away of the Rong and the Di without, these are Your Majesty's merit. The settling of the common people, so that each has a living to follow, this is Your Majesty's benefit. Speaking from this, merit and benefit hold the greater place. Only virtue and humanity remain, and if Your Majesty will make yourself strong without rest, you will surely reach them."
貞觀十七年，太宗謂侍臣曰：「自古草創之主，至於子孫多亂，何也？」司空房玄齡曰：「此為幼主生長深宮，少居富貴，未嘗識人間情偽，理國安危，所以為政多亂。」太宗曰：「公意推過於主，朕則歸咎於臣。夫功臣子弟多無才行，藉祖父資蔭遂處大官，德義不修，奢縱是好。主既幼弱，臣又不才，顛而不扶，豈能無亂？隋煬帝錄宇文述在藩之功，擢化及於高位，不思報效，翻行弒逆。此非臣下之過歟？朕發此言，欲公等戒勖子弟，使無愆過，即家國之慶也。」太宗又曰：「化及與玄感，即隋大臣受恩深者子孫，皆反，其故何也？」岑文本對曰：「君子乃能懷德荷恩，玄感、化及之徒，並小人也。古人所以貴君子而賤小人。」太宗曰：「然。」
In the seventeenth year of Zhenguan, Taizong said to the ministers in attendance:
"From of old, the rulers who founded a house have come down to sons and grandsons in much disorder. Why is that?"
Fang Xuanling, the minister of works, said:
"It is because a young ruler is born and grows up deep in the palace. He lives in wealth and honor from his early years, and he has never known the truth and falsehood among men, nor the safety and danger in the ordering of a state. That is why his government falls into much disorder."
Taizong said:
"Your thought pushes the fault onto the ruler, but I lay the blame on the ministers. The sons and younger brothers of the ministers of merit are mostly without talent or conduct. They lean on the shade of their fathers and grandfathers and so come to hold high office, and they do not cultivate virtue and right, and they take pleasure in extravagance and license. When the ruler is young and weak and the ministers have no talent besides, the state tips over and no one holds it up. How can there be no disorder?
"Emperor Yang of Sui set down the merit that Yuwen Shu had earned while he was still in his princely residence, and he drew Huaji up to high place. Huaji gave no thought to repaying it, and instead laid hands on his sovereign and killed him. Is this not the fault of the ministers? I have brought this up because I want you, my lords, to warn and urge your sons and younger brothers, so that they fall into no fault. That is a blessing for your houses and for the state."
Taizong said further:
"Huaji and Xuangan were the descendants of great ministers of Sui who had received deep favor, and they all rebelled. What is the reason for it?"
Cen Wenben answered:
"Only a gentleman can hold virtue in his heart and bear the weight of favor. Xuangan and Huaji and their like were all small men. That is why the men of old honored the gentleman and thought the small man base."
Taizong said:
"So it is."