Volume 3/The Hsiao/Chapter 6

Chapter VI.

Filial Piety in the Common People.

They follow the course of heaven (in the revolving seasons); they distinguish the advantages ​afforded by (different) soils[1]; they are careful of their conduct and economical in their expenditure;—in order to nourish their parents:—this is the filial piety of the common people.

Therefore from the Son of Heaven down to the common people, there never has been one whose filial piety was without its beginning and end on whom calamity did not come.