User:Dmcdevit

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What matters in being loyal or just is that you do fulfil the charge, in a wine-feast that you do enjoy, in mourning that you do grieve, in serving parents that you do please them. To the glory of fulfilling the charge you can pick your own route; in serving parents, if you do please them they won't raise difficulties about how you did it; in the wine-feast, if you do enjoy you won't be finicky about the cups; in mourning, if you do grieve no one quibbles about the rite.

The rites are what the custom of the times has established. The genuine is the means by which we draw upon Heaven; it is spontaneous and irreplaceable. Therefore the sage, taking Heaven as his model, values the genuine and is untramelled by custom. The fool does the opposite; incapable of taking Heaven as his model he frets about man, ignorant of how to value the genuine he timidly lets himself be altered by custom, and so is an unsatisfied man. What a pity you were steeped so soon in man's artificialities, and are so late in hearing the greatest Way!

—Zhuangzi, trans. A.C. Graham

Wikipedia

To produce without possessing;

To act with no expectation of reward;

To preside over without controlling;

Such is profound virtue!

—Laozi

When one comes to reflect a upon the vast subject matter of an encyclopedia, the one thing that can be perceived distinctly is that it cannot be the work of a single man... This is a work that cannot be completed except by a society of men of letters and skilled workmen, each working separately on his own part, but all bound together by their zeal for the best interests of the human race and a feeling of mutual good will.

—Denis Diderot

Wikipedia policies

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

—Henry David Thoreau on Wikipedia:Etiquette

The Master said, "Is a man not superior who, without anticipating attempts at deception or presuming acts of bad faith, is, nevertheless, the first to be aware of such behaviour?"

—Confucius on Wikipedia:Assume good faith

Laws must be established, but they must not have authority insofar as they deviate from what is best, though they should certainly have authority everywhere else.

—Aristotle on Wikipedia:Ignore all rules

From the point of view of the Way, things have no nobility or meanness. From the point of view of things themselves, each regards itself as noble and other things as mean.

—Zhuangzi on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.

—Laozi on Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep

Knowledge that stops at what it does not know is perfect.

—Zhuangzi on Wikipedia:Original research

The universe is wider than our views of it.

—Henry David Thoreau on Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias

Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's

troops without any fighting; he captures their cities

without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom

without lengthy operations in the field.

With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery