Since ancient times, what are the historical examples of virtue and self-improvement?

Examples of self-improvement:

1. Zhang Haidi was paraplegic at the age of five due to a spinal cord hemangioma. As a result, she never went to school, and started to learn knowledge by herself with tenacity since her childhood, and she successively taught herself the specialized courses in elementary school, secondary school and university. At the age of fifteen, Zhang Haidi was decentralized with her parents to a poor village in Xin County, Liaocheng, but she did not fear the hard life, but devoted her youth with optimism. There she taught the children in the village elementary school, and overcame all the difficulties to learn medical knowledge, enthusiastically for the villagers acupuncture treatment. During her stay in Xinxian, she treated more than 10,000 people for free and was warmly praised by the people.

2. In the United States, the students of the overseas preparatory class witnessed the great achievements of science and technology in North America and Western Europe, and marveled at the rapid development of machines, trains, ships and telecommunication manufacturing. Some students were pessimistic about China's future, but Zhan Tianyou said with firm conviction, "In the future, China will also have trains and ships." With the conviction of studying hard for the prosperity of the motherland, he studied hard and graduated with honors from New Haven in 1867. In May of the same year, he was admitted to the Department of Civil Engineering at Yale University, specializing in railroad engineering. In the four years of the university, Zhan Tianyou study hard, with outstanding results in the graduation exams ranked first. 1881, in one hundred and twenty Chinese students returned to China, only two of the degree, Zhan Tianyou is one of them. After returning to China, Zhan Tianyou was enthusiastically prepared to contribute what he had learned to the cause of railroads in his country.

3, Lin Zexu, Humen smoke. Opium poisoning in the world, the harm is very great, the law should be strict. If still leaking to see, is to make decades later, the Central Plains can not defend the enemy's soldiers, and no silver can be filled with pay. The sea, there is a big, wall, no desire is just.

4, Li Hongzhang, foreign affairs movement. A man is born, but the blood of the nourishment is indelible, or into the devil. The Chinese nation's nature is to strive for strength, never out of the way is the inevitable fate of the corrupt government.

5, Premier Zhou, the first world sentiment. For the rise of China and study. Young people did not not plant a few heels, did not touch a few nails. After the nails, do not be discouraged.

Examples of virtue:

1, many people have read these two lines of poetry: the old Wang Xie Tangqian Yan, flying into the homes of ordinary people. Wang and Xie are two big families famous in Jin Dynasty. Wang's family is represented by Wang Xizhi, a generation of saint of calligraphy that has been famous for thousands of years. "The breeze enters into the sleeve, the bright moon enters into the bosom", people use a wonderful metaphor to describe Wang Xizhi's calligraphy, his works of penmanship, ink, line, charm, all for the admiration of future generations. He is a great calligrapher with no authentic works surviving, yet later generations have been enamored by his calligraphy. His story is also a household name, known to women and children.

Wang Xizhi was 7 years old, practicing calligraphy, studious. 17 years old, he stole his father's secret collection of calligraphy treatises of previous generations to read, look familiar with the practice of writing, he sat by the pool every day to practice, send away the dusk, ushered in the dawn, wrote more or less ink, write more or less pen, every day after practicing in the pool of water to wash the pen, the days and days actually will be washed into a pool of ink, which is the color of the people! Today in Shaoxing to see the ink pool.

Wang Xizhi practiced calligraphy dedicated, to the point of sleep and food. He ate and walked also in the structure of the word to figure out, and constantly with his hands on the body of the word scratch mimeograph, over time, the lapel is also worn out. When Wang Xizhi was small, once at lunch, the scribe sent his favorite garlic and bun, several times to urge him to eat quickly, he still did not even raise his head, as if he did not hear, concentrate on reading and writing. Rice is cold, the boy had no choice but to ask Wang Xizhi's mother to persuade him to eat. Mother came to the study, only to see Xizhi's hand is holding a piece of ink stained bun to the mouth, so that the mouth black. It turned out that Xizhi in eating the bun, eyes still look at the word, the mind is also thinking about how to write this word, the result of the wrong ink as garlic eat. Mother saw this scene, could not hold back the laughter. Wang Xizhi still do not know what is going on! Hearing his mother's laughter he added: "Today's garlic paste is really fragrant!"

The mention of Wang Xizhi had to mention the Lanting Preface, the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there is a custom, in the lunar calendar every year on the third day of the third month, people must go to the river to play in order to eliminate ominous. Eastern Jin Yonghe nine years on the third day of March, Wang Xizhi invited Xie An, Sun Chuo and other 41 literati gathered in the Lanting in the mountains of Huiqi drinking poetry. 42 celebrities sitting in the stream, by the boy will be full of wine goblets into the stream, with the wind, the goblet stops in the bit of who, this person has to be a poem, if it is not made, we must be punished by three cups of wine. Being intoxicated in the wine poetry beautiful flavor when, some people proposed to do that day thirty-seven poems, compiled into a collection, this is the "lanting set". At this time, the family pushed Wang Xizhi to write a "Lanting Collection Preface". Wang Xizhi wine is strong, the pen in the silkworm paper freely waving, a breath, the world's famous "Lanting Preface" thus born.

Two, Ji Xianlin:

Mr. Ji's life, in his words, is "reading and writing every day. The older you get the more work you do." In addition to his research in German philosophy, which Chinese scholars find abstruse, Mr. Ji has been engaged for decades in the study and translation of Indian literature, the history of Buddhism, and the history of cultural exchanges between China and India, and he has also written a wide range of prose essays and other works. Now, the The Complete Works of Ji Xianlin has been compiled into 32 volumes, and roughly speaking, there are already more than 10 million words in it, so he is really a master of learning and a great scholar of our time. What is extremely valuable is that Mr. Ji Xianlin is by no means a bookish scholar who "doesn't listen to what is going on outside the window". On the contrary, he is quite worldly, carrying everything under the sun in his heart, and keeping an eye on the nation, the country, the world, and the nature at all times. He also maintains the spirit of independent thinking, always upholds the exclusive point of view, and never follows the crowd. Li Yujie teacher has repeatedly exclaimed that the old man thought differently from others, sometimes especially ahead of the curve, see his eyes closed frowning there, we can not keep up with.

Three, college students to save two young boys in the river

Two young boys on the beach in Jingzhou, Baota River section of the river, accidentally slipped into the river. Are playing in the Yangtze River University college students found the danger, quickly rushed over. Because most students can not swim, we decided to hold hands to form a human ladder, reaching out to the river to save people. One of the students in the ladder let go of his hand due to physical exhaustion, and the water was in a mess. Chen in time, He Dongxu, Fangzhao 3 college students but disappeared in the turbulent river.

Four, Qian Xiaoyu

Qian Xiaoyu not only filial piety and respect for their own elderly, the elders of the neighborhood is also respect and love. Every holiday she always brings her home-picked fruits and vegetables to visit the elderly in the surrounding neighborhood. She actively participates in social respect for the elderly, old-age pension, help the elderly public welfare activities, play their own artistic expertise to help the community elderly to participate in cultural and recreational activities, for the construction of a harmonious society to make a positive contribution. She voluntarily insists on teaching the elderly to sing every Monday and Thursday evening, which is beneficial to the physical and mental health of the elderly.

Fifth, Li Li

Beijing Fangshan District People's Court judge, she donated blood stem cells twice to save a girl with a terminal illness in Shanghai, who had never met before, in order to realize the action to show a capital city citizen's noble sentiments of virtue and love. Li Li and her colleagues also formed the "Li Li love team", so that the poor, sick, young and weak feel the warmth of the social family.

"Zhouyi" says: "Tian Xing Jian, gentleman to self-improvement; ground potential Kun, gentleman to virtue. The first sentence "Tian Xing Jian, gentleman to self-improvement" is more widely spread. The meaning of the two sentences is: the movement of the sky (i.e. nature) is strong and robust, and accordingly, a gentleman in the world should be like the sky, striving for self-improvement. He should be resolute and strong, and never stop striving for improvement; the earth's momentum is thick and smooth, and the gentleman should increase his virtue and accommodate all things. The motto of Tsinghua University is: "Self-improvement, Virtue and Carrying Things." It is quoted here.

This sentence is from the "Elephant Biography" written by Confucius for the Zhou Yi ? . The Xiang Chuan is divided into big and small elephants. The big elephant is to explain the trigrams to establish the meaning of the small elephant is to explain the six lines of the words. This sentence, respectively, from the two hexagrams of the Qiankun "elephant".

(Qian Gua) said: the sky is healthy, the gentleman to self-improvement; (Kun Gua) said: the earth, the gentleman to the virtue of carrying things.

The last sentence "the sky is healthy, the gentleman to self-improvement" is more widely spread. But over the past 2,000 years, those who know more, those who can explain less. However, there are still different interpretations in the academic world, and there seems to be no universally recognized correct interpretation.

The more common interpretation (reference): the operation of the sky is good, the gentleman should follow the sky and self-improvement; the situation on the ground to take the law of the Kun phase, the gentleman should follow the ground and the virtue of carrying things. Note: Kun Xiang, which means "to follow".

Sourced from Baidu Encyclopedia: Tian Xing Jian (天行健), a gentleman should strive for self-improvement; Earth's situation is Kun Xiang (昆相), a gentleman should emulate the Earth and carry things with virtue