Sze-mâ Niû, full of anxiety, said, “Other men all have their brothers, I only have not.”
Tsze-hsîâ said to him, “There is the following saying which I have heard:—
“ ‘Death and life have their determined appointment; riches and honours depend upon Heaven.’
“Let the superior man never fail reverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety:—then all within the four seas will be his brothers. What has the superior man to do with being distressed because he has no brothers?”