新世界
格物、致知、誠意、正心、修身、齊家、治國、平天下
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英文對照 1:
75.1 When rulers take grain so that they may feast, Their people become hungry;
75.2 When rulers take action to serve their own interests, Their people become rebellious;
75.3 When rulers take lives so that their own lives are maintained, Their people no longer fear death. When people act without regard for their own lives They overcome those who value only their own lives.
76.1 A newborn is soft and tender, A crone, hard and stiff.
76.2 Plants and animals, in life, are supple and succulent; In death, withered and dry.
76.3 So softness and tenderness are attributes of life, And hardness and stiffness, attributes of death.
76.4 Just as a sapless tree will split and decay So an inflexible force will meet defeat;
76.5 The hard and mighty lie beneath the ground While the tender and weak dance on the breeze above.
77.1 Is the action of nature not unlike drawing a bow? What is higher is pulled down, and what is lower is raised up; What is taller is shortened, and what is thinner is broadened;
77.2 Nature's motion decreases those who have more than they need And increases those who need more than they have. It is not so with Man. Man decreases those who need more than they have And increases those who have more than they need.
77.3 To give away what you do not need is to follow the Way.
77.4 So the sage gives without expectation, Accomplishes without claiming credit, And has no desire for ostentation.
78.1 Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water, Yet nothing can better overcome the hard and strong, For they can neither control nor do away with it.
78.2 The soft overcomes the hard, The yielding overcomes the strong; Every person knows this, But no one can practice it.
78.3 Who attends to the people would control the land and grain; Who attends to the state would control the whole world; Truth is easily hidden by rhetoric.
79.1 When conflict is reconciled, some hard feelings remain; This is dangerous.
79.2 The sage accepts less than is due And does not blame or punish;
79.3 For harmony seeks agreement Where justice seeks payment.
79.4 The ancients said: "Nature is impartial; Therefore it serves those who serve all."
英文對照 2:
75.1If the people are hungry, it is because the prince eats up excessive sums of money (which he extorts from them).
75.2 If the people are restive, it is because the prince does too much, (indisposes them by his innovations).
75.3 If the people expose themselves lightly to death (in hazardous enterprises), it is because he loves life too much, (love of well-being, of pleasure, of fame). He who does nothing in order to live, is wiser than he who harms himself in order to live.
76.1 When a man is born he is supple and weak (but full of life); he becomes strong and powerful, and then he dies.
76.2 It is the same for plants, delicate (herbaceous) at first, then becoming woody at the time of their death.
76.3 He who is strong and powerful is marked for death; he who is weak and flexible is marked for life.
76.4 The great army will be defeated. The great tree will be cut down.
76.5 Everything that is strong and great is in a poorer condition. The advantage is always with the supple and the weak.
77.1 Heaven acts (with regard to men) like the archer who, bending his bow, makes the convexities straight and the concavities bulge, diminishing the greater and augmenting the lesser. (Lowering the higher, and raising the lower).
77.2 It takes away from those who have plenty, and adds to those who have little. Whereas men (bad princes who bleed the people) do quite the opposite, taking away from those who lack (the people), in order to add to those who have in abundance (their favourites) ...
77.3 Any superfluity ought to come back to the empire (to the people), but only he who possesses the Principle is capable of that.
77.4 The Sage conforms himself to the Principle. He influences without attributing the result to himself. He accomplishes without appropriating his work to himself. He does not claim the title of the Sage, (but keeps himself in voluntary obscurity).
78.1 In this world there is nothing more supple and weak than water; and yet no one, however strong and powerful he may be, can resist its action (corrosion, wear, wave action); and no being can do without it ( for drinking, growth, etc.).
78.2 Is it clear enough that weakness is worth more than strength, that suppleness can overcome rigidity? - Everyone agrees with this; but no one acts according to it.
78.3 The Sages have said: "He who rejects neither moral filth nor political evil is capable of becoming the chief of a territory or the sovereign of the empire." (He who is supple enough to accommodate himself to all that; and not a rigid and systematic person). These words are quite true, even though they offend many.
79.1 When the principle of a dispute has been settled (some accessory grievances) always remain, and things do not return to the state they were in before, (bruises remain).
79.2 (Therefore the Sage never questions it, despite his right). Keeping his half of the agreement, he does not exact the execution (of what is written).
79.3 He who knows how to conduct himself after the Virtue of the Principle, lets his written agreements sleep. He who does not know how to conduct himself thus, exacts his due.
79.4 Heaven is impartial. (If it were capable of some partiality), it would give advantage to good people, (those who act as in C. It would overwhelm them, because they ask for nothing).
