His words are plain and simple, yet of widest bearing. His aim is self-culture, yet it gives peace to all men. All things are already complete in us. There is no greater delight than to be conscious of right with us. If one strive to treat others as he wuld be treated by them, he shall not fail to come near the perfect life.
Every duty is a charge, but the charge of oneself is the root of all others.
The disease of men is to neglect their own fields and go to weeding those of others, to exact much from others and lay light burdens on theselves. A true scholar holds possesion of himself, neither by riches nor poverty forced away from his virtue. 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.