"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 root of the kingdom is in the state. The root of the state is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its head."
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Source: Confucius, Mencius, 左丘明 (1971). “The Chinese classics with a translation, critical and exegetical notes: prolegomena and copious indexes”
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