2 pieces from Analects — each retold in modern English and traced to its source.
Confucius thought a state was governed the way a person is improved: by example, not by force. Rule the people with laws and punishments and they will dodge you without shame; rule them with virtue and a sense of form and they will correct themselves. Govern, he says, is just another word for set straight.
The junzi — literally a 'ruler's son,' remade by Confucius into a moral ideal anyone can reach for. Not the cleverest or the richest, but the steadiest: the one who asks more of himself than of others, holds to what is right over what pays, and is calm where small men are anxious.