Chuang Tzu said to the Creator of Good:
“Confucius preached for sixty years, and at sixty he changed. What he declared to be true at the beginning, he declared to be false in the end. He has not yet understood whether he has been denying for fifty-nine years what he now calls true?!
“Confucius is full of desire to work, he worships knowledge,” said the Creator of Good.
“Confucius refused this, but he has not yet spoken about his refusal,” said Zhuang Tzu. — The words of Confucius say: “After all, a person receives his abilities from the great foundation, and then his intelligence in order to be born. When he sings, he must follow the tone, when he speaks, he must follow the rules. If I care about benefit and justice, then with love and hatred, true and false, I conquer only human lips; and in order to conquer people’s hearts, he must decide to resist them and then determine the regulations of the Celestial Empire. Alas! Alas! because I can’t achieve this.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru