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Integrity never concerns those who express it,
while obsessing those who want to possess it.

With integrity one has no motive and does not act,
and nothing's left undone.
With humanism, no motive still, and though one acts,
nothing is disturbed.
With justice one has a motive and also acts,
and much is left undone.
With rectitude one acts, and when no one responds,
he rolls his sleeves and coerces them.

When the Way is lost,
it yields to integrity, integrity to humanism,
humanism to justice, and justice to propriety.
So do trust and order wane,
reduced to florid protocol,
wherein nonsense blooms.

Greatness dwells in substance, not in surfaces,
in the fruit and not the flower,
in releasing what is without for what is within.

© Douglas Allchin 2002