Sayings of the Sages

Sayings of Mencius

Sayings of Chuang Tze

Those who would have right without its correlative, wrong, or good government without its correlative, misrule, -- they do not apprehend the great principles of the universe nor the conditions to which all creation is subject. One might as well talk of the existence of heaven without that of earth, or of the negative principle without the positive, which is clearly absurd.

A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people's, but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death,fear,etc., cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not fear from contact with objective existences. And if such security is to be got from wine, how much more is it to got from God? It is in God that the Sage seeks his refuge, and so he is free from harm.