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Daoism -> Zhuangzi -> Outer Chapters -> Tian Zi-fang -> 10.1

肩吾孙叔敖Jian Wu asked Sun-shu Ao, saying,
'You, Sir, were thrice chief minister, and did not feel elated;
you were thrice dismissed from that position, without manifesting any sorrow.
At first I was in doubt about you,
(but I am not now, since) I see how regularly and quietly the breath comes through your nostrils.
?” How is it that you exercise your mind?'
孙叔敖 Sun-shu Ao replied,
'In what do I surpass other men?
When the position came to me, I thought it should not be rejected;
when it was taken away, I thought it could not be retained.
I considered that the getting or losing it did not make me what I was,
and was no occasion for any manifestation of sorrow - that was all.
In what did I surpass other men?
And moreover, I did not know whether the honour of it belonged to the dignity, or to myself.
If it belonged to the dignity,
it was nothing to me;
if it belonged to me,
it had nothing to do with the dignity.
While occupied with these uncertainties,
and looking round in all directions,
!” what leisure had I to take knowledge of whether men honoured me or thought me mean?'


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