Being humble

 　　If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff,

　　even though he be a bad-tempered¹ man he will not become very angry.

　　But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer² clear.

　　If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing.

　　And all because there is somebody in the boat.

　　Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not angry.

　　If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world,

　　no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you....

　　Who can free himself from achievement, and from fame, descend³ and be lost amid the masses of men?

　　He will flow like Tao, unseen, he will go about like Life itself with no name and no home.

　　Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances he is a fool.

　　His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He achieves nothing, has no reputation.

　　Since he judges no one, no one judges him.

　　Such is the perfect man:

　　His boat is empty.

　　…

　　The man who has some respect for his person keeps his carcass out of sight, hides himself as perfectly⁴ as he can.

1 bad-tempered   

adj.脾气坏的

参考例句：

• He grew more and more bad-tempered as the afternoon wore on.随着下午一点点地过去，他的脾气也越来越坏。
• I know he's often bad-tempered but really,you know,he's got a heart of gold.我知道他经常发脾气，但是，要知道，其实他心肠很好。

2 steer   

vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶

参考例句：

• If you push the car, I'll steer it.如果你来推车，我就来驾车。
• It's no use trying to steer the boy into a course of action that suits you.想说服这孩子按你的方式行事是徒劳的。

3 descend   

vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降

参考例句：

• I hope the grace of God would descend on me.我期望上帝的恩惠。
• We're not going to descend to such methods.我们不会沦落到使用这种手段。

4 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。