One whose greatest concern is for the Way and righteousness will take lightly kings and dukes. It is simply that when one examines oneself on the inside, external goods carry little weight. A saying goes, "The gentleman makes things his servants. The petty man is servant to things." ~Xun Zi
Athing exists as a separateentity, object, quality or concept.
Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In theGenesis account of the creation these are called simply "things." They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come.
The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and a thousand other things well.
Keswick, inThe Education Outlook (1926) Vol. 78[citation needed]
It is a confusion to present the items of one sort in the idioms of another -- without awareness. For to do this is not just to cross two different sorts; it is to confuse them. It is to mistake, for example, thetheory for thefact, theprocedure for theprocess, themyth forhistory, themodel for the thing and themetaphor for the face of literaltruth.
One whose intentions and thoughts are cultivated will disregard wealth and nobility. One whose greatest concern is for the Way and righteousness will take lightly kings and dukes. It is simply that when one examines oneself on the inside, external goods carry little weight. A saying goes, "The gentleman makes things his servants. The petty man is servant to things."
Xun Zi, “Cultivating Oneself,” E. Hutton, trans.,Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2001), p. 263
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