Japan Quotes

“The sovereign being equipped with virtue, and his counsellors with wisdom, it remains only for the common people to learn their duties and fulfil them. Since they are not capable of understanding the abstract morality of the sages, of determining for themselves what is correct conduct, they must be instructed by means of concrete and positive precepts. It is these precepts which are embodied in the Rites. The good citizen is one who fulfils regularly and completely his ritual obligations. Instead of a code of morals he has a code of manners.”
― George Bailey Sansom, Japan: A Short Cultural History