Lietse (8)

1 In traveling around the countries, Confucius received various cynicisms and confronted plenty of crisis, from that, he had a throughout apprehension of human mind.

2 Someday, in the class he said to his students, “The operation of trick and conspiracy in association with human fully shows that human mind is as dangerous as climbing steep cliff and wading through swift rivers.

3 You don’t know what your companion’s mind is even in a joyful feast.

4 High as the sky is, we however, can forecast the weather.

5 Thick clouds, dark sky and dusk in the morning mean rain; cool wind and less cloud surely predict a sunny day.

6 When sun is on the east sky, it is morning; when sun is on the west sky, it is fall of darkness.

7 However, the mind of human is unpredictable. A man who smiles at you doesn’t always express friendliness. Who knows whether there a knife hiding behind the smile?

8 An idiot who looks silly may be a genius of math. He, who is outwardly gentle but inwardly stern, can disguise himself by gentle appearance but he is never shakable and doubtable to his goal.

9 Those rough fellows look strong and mindless, but when you approach to them and become their close friend, you will find their loveliness and tenderness.

10 Some gentlemen look gentle and elegant but they are cold-hearted. Their loves just hang on their faces under which there might be cruel and stone-like hearts.

11 So, sometimes you may meet some people who are very keen to you and do their best to help you without any hesitation, but they will leave you if there are some new opportunities or the situation is changed.

12 Therefore, when you cooperate with others, you must do some works to learn about your companions and cooperators so as to avoid from being cheated.

13 There are nine ways to know people as follows.

(1) Sent him to a far cry for errand, watch his conducts and test his loyalty under no supervision.

(2) Keep him stay nearby to watch his each action and word to test his nature, because co-work everyday will make him take off mask and show his nature at some moment.

(3) Ask him to accomplish a lot of tasks in a short time to test his ability in work.

(4) Raise a question suddenly to test his response and his real knowledge.

(5) Ask him to accomplish a task in a short time under difficult situation to test his response and decision to finish the task.

(6) Entrust him to keep or run a business with a sum of money to test his ability to resist the temptation and personal integrity under the condition of occupying the money.

(7) Put him in a designed crisis to see if he will escape or change his mind.

(8) Make him drunk to watch his attitude, since a man can tell the truth without disguising when being drunk.

(9) Let him contact persons of opposite sex in social occasion, you can find if he respects people in such place of entertainment.

14 A man who can pass those examinations, you may set your heart at rest to cooperate with him and to consign important works to him.”