"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."
"The gap between enthusiasm and indifference is filled with failures. The great man is he that does not lose his child's heart."
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Source: Confucius, Mencius, Ssǔ shu, Wu king, Shu Ching (1861). “The Chinese Classics”, p.197
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