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7.26 The Master said, “A Divine Sage I cannot hope ever to meet; the most I can hope for is to meet a true gentleman.”
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6.27The Master said, “A gentleman who is widely versed in letters and at the same time knows how to submit his learning to the restraints of ritual is not likely, I think, to go far wrong.”
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6.18 The Master said, “When natural substance prevails over ornamentation, you get the boorishness of the rustic. When ornamentation prevails over natural substance, you get the pedantry of the scribe. Only when ornament and substance are duly blended do you get the true gentleman.”
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4.16 The Master said, “A gentleman takes as much trouble to discover what is right as lesser men take to discover what will pay.”
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4.11 The Master (Confucius) said, “Where gentlemen set their hearts upon virtue, the commoners set theirs upon the soil. Where gentlemen think only of punishments, the commoners think only of exemptions.”
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4.10 The Master said, “A gentleman in his dealings with the world has neither enmities nor affections; but wherever he sees righteousness he ranges himself beside it.”
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4.5 Wealth and rank are what every man desires; but if they can only be retained to the detriment of the Way he professes, he must relinquish them.
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The Master said: “The noble person practices inclusive integrity — they embrace all with impartial care, avoiding factional alliances. The petty person forms exclusive cliques — they bond through self-interest, lacking ethical consistency.
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The Master said, “A gentleman is not an implement.”