About this passageThree questions and a conclusion, set by Legge in verse where the Chinese is rhymed and compressed. The questions are about price: what a reputation costs, what a hoard costs, and which of keeping or losing them brings more grief. The last lines name two stopping conditions — being content, and knowing where to stop — and claim both as forms of safety rather than restraint.
Or fame or life, Which do you hold more dear? Or life or wealth, To which would you adhere? Keep life and lose those other things; Keep them and lose your life:—which brings Sorrow and pain more near?
Thus we may see, Who cleaves to fame Rejects what is more great; Who loves large stores Gives up the richer state.
Who is content Needs fear no shame. Who knows to stop Incurs no blame. From danger free Long live shall he.
In plainer words
Which do you care about more, your name or your life? Your life or your money? And which hurts more — keeping the things and losing the life, or losing the things and keeping it? Look at it and you see that the one who clings to a reputation is turning down something bigger, and the one who piles up possessions is giving up a richer state than the pile. Whoever has enough is not going to be humiliated. Whoever knows where to stop does not get blamed. They are the ones who last.
A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.