子曰：「由，知德者鮮矣！」
Confucius said: “Zilu, there only a very few people who understand virtue.”
I could of course be wrong, but it’s when I come across comments like this in the Analects that I can’t help thinking that Confucius was at his happiest when he had something to complain about.
Given that for all its manifest weaknesses humanity has somehow managed to build and sustain a reasonably well-ordered society for thousands of years, I also happen to think his statement is wrong as well. But that, as they say, is another story.
