Zizhang lays four core standards for a true scholar: sacrifice life amid danger, weigh gains against righteousness, hold reverence in sacrifices, and feel sincere grief at funerals. These form the minimal moral baseline for Confucian intellectuals.
The Master said, “There may be noble persons (junzi) who occasionally fall short of benevolence; but there has never been a petty person who truly attained benevolence.”
Analects 7.16 The Master said, “He who seeks only coarse food to eat, water to drink and a bent arm for pillow, will without looking for it find happiness to boot. Any thought of accepting wealth and rank by means that I know to be wrong is as remote from me as the clouds…