"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."
"To act without clear understanding, to form habits without investigation, to follow a path all one's life without knowing where it really leads; such is the behavior of the multitude."
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Source: Mencius (1942). “The Book of Mencius: (abridged)”
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