Don't make promises to people without thinking when you are happy; Don't lose your temper when you are drunk without control; Don't make trouble without restraint when you are proud; Don't be lazy when you are tired.

It's from Caigen Tan collected and edited by Taoist Hong Yingming in the early Ming Dynasty.

Excerpt from the original text: Don't take pleasure in making promises lightly, don't be drunk, don't take advantage of quick things, and don't end up fresh because of fatigue. Fishing for water is an anecdote, and it still holds the handle of life and death; Playing chess, clearing the play, and moving the heart of war. It can be seen that a happy event is not as good as a convenient one, and that many abilities are not as good as incompetence.

Definition: Don't make promises to people without thinking when you are happy; Don't lose your temper when you are drunk without control; Don't make trouble without restraint when you are proud; Don't be lazy when you are tired. Fishing is an elegant activity, but it holds the power to kill fish; Playing chess is a legitimate and elegant entertainment, but there is a war mentality in it. It can be seen that a good thing is not as leisurely as nothing, and a lot of talent is not as good as a lack of talent to preserve the pure nature.

Extended information

Creation background: Hong Yingming's life story is unknown. It is speculated that he is probably a person from Jintan County and a hermit who has lived in the mountains for a long time. The book may be published in the middle or late period of Wanli period. At this time, the emperor Shenzong had no way to govern the country, the eunuch was autocratic, the government was lax, and the party was in trouble. The domestic and foreign troubles that began to show signs in Jiajing Dynasty became more serious, and the thoughts of people of insight were extremely dull, so they could not be freed from the fierce social contradictions at that time, so someone would express the voice of the times in various forms.

Caigen Tan is a collection of aphoristic essays focusing on the thought of dealing with the world. It adopts a quotation style and combines the Confucian doctrine of the mean, the Taoist thought of inaction and the Buddhist philosophy of dealing with the world. From the structure, Caigen Tan has beautiful words, neat antithesis, far-reaching meaning and intriguing. It is a popular reading that is beneficial for people to cultivate their sentiments, temper their will and strive for progress.

There are roughly two different editions of Caigen Tan —— the Qing edition and the Ming edition. The Ming edition comes from the inscription of Yu Kongjian, the owner of Sanfeng, and it is said that it was originally published in Eight Notes on Yashangzhai Zunsheng edited by Gao Lian in Ming Dynasty. The book is divided into two parts, with 225 articles in the first part, 135 articles in the second part and 36 articles in * * * (there are 362 books in Shanghai Library, several articles in the middle have been merged, and several articles have been added at the end). The photo of this entry is a clear-cut version, mainly based on the woodcut version of Yangzhou Tibetan Classics Institute in the year of Guangxu Dinghai, and the typography of Buddhism Bookstore in the twenty-third year.

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Caigen Tan