“When you concentrate on agriculture and industry and are frugal in expenditures, Heaven cannot impoverish your state.”

If what the heart approves conforms to proper patterns, then even if one’s desires are many, what harm would they be to good order?

I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.

The rigid cause themselves to be broken; the pliable cause themselves to be bound.

There are successful scholars, public-spirited scholars, upright scholars, cautious scholars, and those who are merely petty men.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

Human nature is such that people are born with a love of profit If they follow these inclinations, they will struggle and snatch from each other, and inclinations to defer or yield will die.

Therefore, a person should first be changed by a teacher’s instructions, and guided by principles of ritual. Only then can he observe the rules of courtesy and humility, obey the conventions and rules of society, and achieve order.

When people lack teachers, their tendencies are not corrected; when they do not have ritual and moral principles, then their lawlessness is not controlled.

Man’s nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity.

Human nature refers to what is in people but which they cannot study or work at achieving.

The drum is surely the lord of music, is it not?

The person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere.

Sacrifice is a state of mind in which our thoughts turn with longing [toward Heaven, the Ancestors], It is the supreme expression of loyalty, love, and respect.

If the gentleman has ability, he is magnanimous, generous, tolerant, and straightforward, through which he opens the way to instruct others.

Human nature is what Heaven supplies.

The coming of honor or disgrace must be a reflection of one’s inner power.

That we don’t design agriculture to be sustainable is totally eerie. We design it to be a disaster, and of course, we get a disaster.

The agriculture taught at colleges between 1930 and 1980 has caused more damage on the face of the Earth than any other factor.

The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production – in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation – essential as they are, make people sick and die.

Agriculture’s not insulated from having a percentage of people who might be really good old graziers, but they’re no good as business people.

If you ask what you are going to do about global warming, the only rational answer is to change the way in which we do transportation, energy production, agriculture and a good deal of manufacturing. The problem originates in human activity in the form of the production of goods.

Farming, if you do one thing late, you will be late in all your work.

The experience of ages has shown that a man who works on the land is purer, nobler, higher, and more moral… Agriculture should be at the basis of everything. That’s my idea.

Profits might also increase, because improvements might take place in agriculture, or in the implements of husbandry, which would augment the produce with the same cost of production.