Appendix — The Newly Engraved Mingxin Baojian附新刻前賢切要明心寶鑑

Read a book a thousand times, and its meaning appears of itself.

Learning stands below one man; its use stands above ten thousand.

A strict teacher turns out fine disciples; a strict mother turns out skillful daughters.

Without beating, a child does not become a man; beat him and rear him, and he becomes an officer. If you would win wealth and honor in your life, you must work at it as if your life hung on it.

Do not spare your money and leave your child untaught; do not plead your want and refuse a teacher.

Choose a teacher and have your child taught; choose a husband and give your daughter in marriage.

To get a thousand strings of cash by evil is easy; to earn a single coin by goodness is hard.

Do nothing in all your life that betrays your own heart, and though a knock comes at the door at midnight, your heart will not start.

If you would keep a small child at ease, there is no better way than not to let him hunger or go cold.

Better be the dog of a great house than seek to be a man of a small one. In a small house every task is done in a flurry; in a great house every task is done as a matter of course.

Parents rear a man’s body; friends bring up his will.

Farming a field depends on the soil; rearing a child depends on the mother.

Though a thousand strings of cash lie piled in the house, they are not so good as one coin coming in each morning.

A dragon bears a dragon's young; a tiger bears a leopard's cub.

He who calls me good is my thief; he who calls me bad is my teacher.

The filial and obedient bear filial and obedient children in their turn; the defiant bear defiant children in their turn. If you do not believe it, look at the water dripping from the eaves. Drop by drop it falls, and never goes astray.

The wolf eats meat though he travel a thousand li; the dog eats bones though he travel a thousand li.

Even the chicken does not eat food it has not earned, and the lamb knows the kindness of kneeling to suckle.

The Book of Songs says, "Confucius said, 'When the fold is sound, the beasts do not get out; when the fence is sound, the fire does not get in.'"

Because you have become friends, do not tell all that is in your heart. On a later day, when the feeling is gone, it will be made into a matter of right and wrong.

Bend the mulberry branch while it is young; once it has grown, bend it and it will not curve.

Better to trade rebukes with a good man than to trade words with a bad one.

A man cannot take a thousand words; a tree cannot take ten thousand strokes of the axe.

One good word is warm in the dead of winter; a word that does not meet the mind is cold in the sixth month.

To be careful is the root of being a man; to be hard and violent is the root that calls down disaster.

Better to eat carelessly than to speak carelessly.

A pair of quick and clever eyes go always with lips that make quarrels.

If your cunning is ten parts, use seven, and leave the other three to your children and grandchildren.

A field on the hill must be worked in reliance on heaven; and do not go about the government office when you have no business there.

When two idle men have one diligent man between them, even the diligent grows idle; when two diligent men have one idle man between them, even the idle grows diligent.

I urge you, do not sleep till the sun glows red. Rise early three mornings and you have gained a day's work. And if the whole household rises early, you are spared having to beg of others and bow your head.

A thousand savory things are not so good as salt; wealth, honor, and glory are not so good as tilling a field.

The state takes farming as its root; the people put food first.

The trader's road is a flower before the eyes; the hoe blade striking the ground is the farmer's living. Walk to the ends of heaven and the corners of the sea, and only the hoe will never fail a man.

If the fire in your heart is out, what use is the lamp before the Buddha? The mouth chants Mahasattva, while maggots swarm in the belly.

Spread out the spring wind and there will be summer rain; when winter comes and the cold sets in, propriety and right come to life.

Kindness is a thing to be spread out; enmity is a thing that is tied up.

Your walk must be a slow step; your speech must be in a low voice.

Learn and master the arts of letters and of arms, and only then do you become a subject of an emperor or a king.

Little gathered becomes much; drops of water gathered become a river.

First is the tie you are born into, second is destiny, third is fengshui, fourth is the piling up of hidden merit, fifth is the reading of books.

Draw a dragon, draw a tiger, but the bone is hard to draw; know a man, know his face, but you do not know his heart.

A thousand pieces of gold are easy to come by; a good word is hard to seek out.

When in learning you come to know shame, it is because your skill was never fine to begin with.

Meet evil and do not be afraid; meet good and do not cheat it.

No man is in the wrong on both sides; no cart falls over while it sits still.

The poor man rears a spoiled child; the rich man gets servants to work for him.

Where the civil officer sits there are brush and inkstone; where the military officer sits there are bow and arrow.

If you are not a scholar, do not open books; if you are not a butcher, do not kill pigs. If you have not a boatman's hand, do not try to work the pole.

When the sky turns yellow there will be snow; when a man turns yellow there is sickness.

The civil officer takes up the brush and brings peace to all under heaven; the general takes up the sword and settles the great peace.

The clever man acts as a matchmaker; the dull man stands surety.

Go a hair's breadth astray, and you lose it by a thousand li.

When a man is grown he ought to take a wife; when a woman is grown she is sure to marry.

Laugh in front of others, and you fall behind them.

A flower has a day when it opens again; a man does not become young a second time.

When a house has a worthy wife, the man does not meet disaster; when a house has an able husband, wife and child do not eat plain rice.

To keep a household of a thousand mouths is easy; to live as one body alone is hard.

Do not say that you set out early; there is always one who sets out earlier.

A tree chopped and not felled means the axe blade was small; a man you cannot judge means your learning is slight.

Better a thousand good days following the mother than one lonely day following the father.

When the dragon plays in shallow water, the shrimp make sport of him; when the tiger comes down to the flat plain, the dogs look down on him.

Go step by step, and the road is not far.

You are bitten by the snake because you tread on it; you are bitten by the dog because you run into it.

A nose like a hawk's beak pecks at the marrow of others; a face without flesh on it is surely a monstrous thing.

An ancient said, "There is no highest good like filial duty, and no worst evil beyond lewdness. If I violate another man's wife, another will surely violate mine."

When a man is poor his will grows short; when a horse is thin its hair grows long.

If you do not go through one matter, you do not grow by one measure of sense.

Quarrels are there all day long; do not listen, and they are gone of themselves.

Better drink water given with a smiling brow than eat, from the first, soup given with a frowning one.

Better that you should harm another than that another should harm you. That you harm another may pass; but if another harms you, what will you do then?

The Han shu says, "On the Changjiang there is no sixth month, and in the green hills there is cold at times."

A child does not fault his mother for being plain; a dog does not resent his house for being poor.

The dog remembers a road of a thousand li; the ox comes back to its own village after a hundred days.

He gets one day's fill, and forgets a hundred days of hunger.

A man who does not know the past and the present is like a horse or an ox dressed in clothes; a man who does not know learning is like an ox or a sheep. Alas, I am old, and the years will not stretch themselves for me.

The pearl is a precious jewel; writing makes a high officer. Know a thousand lines of characters, and propriety and right come to life of themselves.

The writing of Confucius is precious; take up the brush, and you overtop ten thousand men.

Promise a man one thing, and a thousand pieces of gold will not move you from it.

Those far off become kin by marriage; those close by become foes.

Let three, four, five, six men come together, and they are a mixed lot, long and short.

He who loves neatness washes his clothes diligently; he who is greedy for idleness does not even comb his hair. To become a man you cannot have your own way, and if you have your own way you do not become a man.

Great wealth rests on destiny and small wealth on diligence; and if even so you are idle, only the weeds in the field will grow green.

If you would take the road below the mountain, ask those who come and go.

If you carry musk it is fragrant of itself. What need is there to stand in the wind?

If you have ambition, do not show off beside your own house — the very boy herding the cattle will call you by your bare name.

It was the general who settled the great peace, yet once peace has come the old general is not used.

With a friend who knows you, a thousand cups of wine are few; when words do not meet the mind, half a word is too much.

No man has a thousand days that are all good; no flower has a hundred days that are all red.

Catching fish and groping for shrimp, he starves his whole household to death.

Whether a man has ambition or not, you can tell by watching how he tends the fire and sweeps the yard.

When a man drinks he shakes his legs and waves his hands; when a woman drinks, her unseemliness is past all telling.

Propriety and right are born of wealth and honor; thieves and robbers come out of hunger and cold.

In people the old are best; in clothes the new are best.

When a man grows old he has many words; when a tree grows old it has many roots.

Wine cannot make a gentleman drunk; the cudgel does not fall on a good man.

A man's heart is like iron; the law of the government office is like a furnace.

One word of a gentleman is one stroke of the whip to a swift horse.

The gentleman contends for a seat; the small man contends for a place to lie down.

Among men there are great and small, but in the mouth there is no high or low. Cooling medicine is bitter in the mouth; urge others with straight words.

What man in office has no private ends? What water has no fish?

Among the men of old, great worthies often came from plain faces; among the men of today, great villains often come from handsome ones.

Though gold fill the house, it is not so good as tilling a field.

If beating a drum could pray down rain, then even the high mountain would be a field; if praying to the stars could win long life, then the Daoist priest would live a thousand years.

When a man has a good thought, heaven is sure to follow him in it.

There is nothing that can match the virtue of heaven and earth; one can only trust it all to a single stick of incense, morning and evening.

Kill a man and you pay with your life; owe a debt and you pay with money.

The rich man complains that a thousand mouths are too few; the poor man grieves that even one body is too many.

To hide a thing from another is like drawing water with a basket; to cheat another out of it is like catching the wind in a net.

If you have not studied one classic, you do not know propriety and right.

Treat well the guest who has come a thousand li; he will go ten thousand li and carry your name.

Spend sparingly and you are easily full; spend wastefully and you go hungry again.

A man who sees another and does not know how to greet him is surely a dull thing.

If a man wears torn clothes on his body, he is surely short of money and grain.

Remember a thousand or a hundred good poems, and though you cannot compose a poem, you will at least be able to chant one.

Come to a village and follow the village; gather hemp and put it in the basket.

Steal for three years and rob a hundred houses, and when disaster comes to your gate there is no use in sighing.

Confucius said, "Of the root of all conduct, forbearance is the highest." Zizhang said, "How does one forbear?" The Master said, "If the Son of Heaven forbears, the state takes no harm. If a feudal lord forbears, he achieves his greatness. If an officer forbears, his rank advances. If brothers forbear, the house grows rich and honored. If husband and wife forbear, they end their lives together. If friends forbear, they keep their friendship to the end. If a man himself forbears, he has no disaster or grief."

Zizhang said, "And if one does not forbear?" The Master said, "If the Son of Heaven does not forbear, the state is left empty. If a feudal lord does not forbear, he loses his place. If an officer does not forbear, he dies by the law. If brothers do not forbear, they live apart from one another. If husband and wife do not forbear, their children and grandchildren grow few. If friends do not forbear, feeling and duty grow thin. If a man himself does not forbear, his troubles are never cleared away."

Zizhang said, "Well said, well said! Hard to bear, hard to bear! One who is not a man does not forbear, and one who does not forbear is not a man."

Doing evil is as easy as flowing downward; following good is as hard as climbing.

Of the five kinds of conduct and the hundred constant duties, filial obedience comes first.

Dote on your son and spoil your grandson, and they are hard to teach; talk of this one's length and that one's shortness, and you do not become a man.

While they were alive he did not offer them the joys that had their limit; after they were gone he sheds in vain tears that have no feeling left to reach them.

There is the son who divides the family property and resents his parents for not dividing it evenly. There is the son who believes his wife's words and slanders his parents as unloving. There is the son who is unrestrained, proud, and extravagant, and hates the check his parents put on him. There is the son who drinks and gambles and whores, and resents his parents for holding him in. There is the son who favors his own wife and children, and grudges his parents their clothing and food. There is the son who is generous to friends and kin, and stingy with what his parents spend. There is the son who insists on taking his turn to support them, and so leaves his parents hungry and cold. There is the son who is always away from home while his wife defies them, and who knows very well that his parents are swallowing their anger. There is the son who is away for many years, who forgets to come home and pay his respects, and does not care who supports his parents. There is the son whose father toils at the family's living and whose mother labors at the well and the mortar, while he and his wife are greedy for ease and even say that the parents are in the wrong. There is the son who, when his parents fall ill, does not call for a physician or medicine, and makes the excuse that an old man's illness is hard to cure. All of these are past bearing, and to speak of them makes the heart ache.

In short, the true wealth and honor of this human world — is it not, after all, the house of an emperor?