• A parable on study

    “I am seventy already,” said Duke Ping of Jin to his blind musician Shi Kuang. “Though I want very much to study and read some books, I feel it is too late.”

  • Hui Shi’s art of persuasion

    “Hui Zi is forever using analogies,” complained someone to the king of Liang. “If Your Majesty forbid him to speak in analogies, he won’t be able to make his meaning clear.”

  • The owl moves house

    One day the owl met the turtle-dove.

  • Blind Steps and Crippled Eyes

    A certain country was invaded by its enemy. When a lame man there told a blind man of this, the blind man carried the lame one on his back and they escaped together.

  • The Clay Idol and the Peachwood Doll

    When Lord Mengchang decided to leave his native land – Qi state – to take office in Qin, hundreds of men tried to dissuade him from going. But he would not listen to them. Then Su Qin, the rhetorician, wanted to reason with him.

  • Thousand gold for horse bones

    There was a king who was willing to pay a thousand pieces of gold for a horse that could run a thousand li without stopping. However, he tried in vain for three years to find such a steed.