Modesty makes people progress, pride makes people fall behind.

Confucius' talk about modesty is common in The Analects. His disciple Zilu was outspoken, too reckless and often not modest enough. Confucius often criticized or taught him a lesson. On one occasion, Zilu, Ceng Zhe, Ran You and Gong Xihua sat around with Confucius. Confucius said, "You always say,' Nobody knows me!'" What are you going to do if someone knows about you? Zilu quickly replied, "A country with 1, personnel carriers, sandwiched between big countries and invaded by foreign troops, even caught up with famine years. If I were allowed to govern, it would only take me three years to make everyone brave and good at fighting, and I would also know how to be a human being." Confucius expressed his criticism with "Yi Zhi" (a slight smile). Confucius said: "To govern the country, we should be polite, but Zi Lu's words are not humble at all. How can we govern the country well?" On another occasion, Confucius took several students to the temple to offer sacrifices. As soon as he entered the temple gate, he saw a striking (Qi) vessel on the seat, which is said to be a sacrificial vessel for holding wine. The students felt novel and asked questions one after another. Confucius did not answer, but asked the people in the temple, "Excuse me, what kind of instrument is this?" When the temple keeper saw this man's modesty and courtesy, he respectfully said, "Master, this is an instrument placed on the right side of the seat!" " So Confucius looked at the utensil carefully, repeating "sit right" and "sit right" in his mouth, and then said to the students, "The utensil placed on the right side of the seat is tilted when it is empty, and becomes straight when it is half filled with water, but it is full of water." It will overturn. " After listening to the teacher, the students all looked at him with amazing eyes, and then at the novel instrument. Confucius saw everyone's thoughts and asked them kindly, "Do you have some disbelief?"? Let's try some water in the jar! " As he spoke, the students called water. When half the water was poured into the container, the container was really straight. Confucius immediately said to them, "See, isn't this right?" Everyone nodded. He asked the students to continue to pour water into the utensils, which just filled up and fell over. Confucius quickly told them, "Dumping is because the water is full!" The outspoken Zilu took the lead in asking, "Is there no way to keep it from falling?" Confucius took a deep look at everyone and said earnestly: "The extremely clever people in the world should keep their cleverness by being prudent (acting cautiously and steadily);" Those who have made great contributions to the world should keep their contributions with modesty; A brave and unparalleled person should keep his skills with caution ... that is to say, he should use concessions to reduce complacency. " The students were deeply moved by the profound words. Socrates, a famous philosopher in ancient Greece, not only wrote brilliant works, but also recruited students to be backward and used famous enlightening conversations to enlighten young people's wisdom. Whenever people admire his profound knowledge and superior wisdom, he always humbly says, "The only thing I know is my own ignorance." Newton, who was praised as the "father of mechanics", discovered the law of universal gravitation, and in heat, he determined the law of cooling. In mathematics, he put forward the "flow number method", established the binomial theorem and Leibniz founded calculus almost at the same time, which opened a new era in mathematics. He is a great scientist with many achievements, yet he is very humble. Regarding his success, he said modestly, "If I see farther than Descartes, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." He also said to people: "I am just like a child playing on the beach. Sometimes I am happy to pick up a smooth and beautiful stone, but the sea of truth has not been discovered." Beethoven, a world-famous music master, modestly said that he "learned only a few notes". Einstein, a great scientist, said that he was "as naive as a child". Andre, a French chemist, made chemical achievements when he was one of the Muji people. He was elected as a member of the Royal Society, Owens College specially set up a new professor position in organic chemistry for him, and Glass University elected him as an honorary doctor. These honors have not changed his modesty at all. After Xiao Laima's death, Engels called him "the most modest man in the world" in his eulogy.