"When Heaven is about to confer a great office on a man, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil ; it exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty ; it confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies."
"He who goes to the bottom of his own heart knows his own nature; And knowing his own nature, he knows heaven."
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Source: Mencius, James Legge (1875). “The Life and Works of Mencius: With Essays and Notes”, p.316
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