All those who hold fast and cleave to Nature

Are complete in the qualities belonging to it;

Being complete in those qualities, they thus

Become complete in their bodily shape;

Becoming complete in their bodily shape,

They are definitely complete in their spirit.

To be complete in spirit is the way of leading.

Such leaders live in the world in closest union

With their people, going along with them and

Making them show initiative by themselves.

Vast and complete is their exalted accessibility!

Success and gain, ingenious contrivances and

Artful cleverness indicate in their opinions

A forgetfulness of the right mind of mankind.

Since the people will not go where their minds

Do not carry them, and do nothing of which

Their minds do not approve, their leaders have

Just to mirror what the people have in essence,

Not in ephemerality, as is sometimes the case.

And though the entire world should praise them

As the worthy superiors, they would only get

What they think should be loftily disregarded;

And though the entire world should blame them

As the unworthy governors, they would but lose

What they think fortuitous and not to be received.

In fact, the world's blame and praise can do them

Neither benefit nor injury, for their own sake.

Such sort of leaders may be regarded and described

As possessing of all the attributes of Nature,

Who are like the ocean waves carried about

By the wind from above and the current from below.