way.

"Let mulberry trees be planted about the homesteads with their five
acres, and persons of fifty years will be able to wear silk. In keeping
fowls, pigs, dogs, and swine, let not their time of breeding be
neglected, and persons of seventy years will be able to eat flesh. Let
there not be taken away the time that is proper for the cultivation of
the field allotment of a hundred acres, and the family of several mouths
will not suffer from hunger. Let careful attention be paid to the
teaching in the various schools, with repeated inculcation of the filial
and fraternal duties, and gray-haired men will not be seen upon the
roads, carrying burdens on their backs or on their heads. It has never
been that the ruler of a State where these results were seen, persons of
seventy wearing silk and eating flesh, and the black-haired people
suffering neither from hunger nor cold, did not attain to the Royal
dignity.

"Your dogs and swine eat the food of men, and you do not know to store
up of the abundance. There are people dying from famine on the roads,
and you do not know to issue your stores for their relief. When men die,
you say, 'It is not owing to me; it is owing to the year,' In what does
this differ from stabbing a man and killing him, and then saying, 'It
was not I; it was the weapon'? Let your Majesty cease to lay the blame
on the year and instantly the people, all under the sky, will come to
you."

King Hwuy of Lëang said, "I wish quietly to receive your instructions."
Mencius replied, "Is there any difference between killing a man with a
stick and with a sword?" "There is no difference," was the answer.