Confucius said: “Good medicine is bitter in the mouth but helps against illness. Loyal words grate on the ear but help in conduct. Tang and Wu prospered through ministers who spoke out. Jie and Zhou perished through ministers who said yes.” (良药苦于口而利于病，忠言逆于耳而利于行) The passage is in the Family Sayings of Confucius.
In the Records of the Grand Historian, Zhang Liang uses the same saying to urge Liu Bang to listen to unwelcome advice.
Mencius said: “When people told Zilu that he had a fault, he was glad. When Yu heard good words, he bowed.” (子路，人告之以有过则喜。禹闻善言则拜。) The first line became the saying 闻过则喜, to be glad on hearing of one’s faults.
The Song statesman Sima Guang used it to praise his emperor. Since coming to the throne, he wrote, the emperor had been “glad on hearing of his faults, and followed remonstrance like a flowing stream.”
In 628, Emperor Taizong of Tang asked Wei Zheng: “What makes a ruler clear-sighted, and what makes him blind?” Wei Zheng answered: “Listening to all sides makes him clear-sighted. Trusting one side makes him blind.” (兼听则明，偏信则暗) He named rulers who had fallen because they trusted one adviser, such as the Second Emperor of Qin, who trusted Zhao Gao.
“If the ruler listens to all and takes in widely,” Wei Zheng concluded, “powerful ministers cannot block him, and the feelings of those below reach those above.” The exchange is in the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government.
The physician Bian Que told Duke Huan of Cai: “Your Lordship has an illness in the skin. If it is not treated, it may go deeper.” “I have no illness,” said the duke. When Bian Que left, the duke said: “Doctors like to treat people who are not ill, to take the credit.” Twice more Bian Que warned him, and twice the duke did not answer. The fourth time, Bian Que saw him and ran.
The illness had reached the marrow. Five days later, the duke was in pain and sent for Bian Que, who had already fled. The story is in the Han Feizi. It gave the idiom 讳疾忌医, to hide an illness and avoid the doctor, and in a wider sense to cover up faults and fear criticism.
Fan Zhongyan was demoted several times for speaking out. His friend Mei Yaochen wrote a rhapsody on a crow to urge him to say less. Fan answered, probably in 1036, with a rhapsody of his own (灵乌赋). His crow knows the risk: “If it warns, disaster turns back on itself. If it does not warn, disaster ripens for others.”
The crow decides: “Better to cry out and die than to live in silence.” (宁鸣而死，不默而生)
In his essay The Difficulties of Persuasion (说难), Han Feizi wrote: “The dragon is a creature that can be tamed and ridden. But under its throat it has reversed scales a foot across. Whoever touches them is sure to be killed. A ruler also has reversed scales. A persuader who can avoid touching them has nearly succeeded.”
In the second year of his reign, Emperor Wen of Han abolished the crime of slander and evil words. “In ancient times, the court had a banner for proposing good and a post for criticism, to open the way of government and invite remonstrance,” he said.
“Now the law has the crime of slander and evil words. This makes the ministers afraid to speak their minds, and the ruler has no way to hear of his faults.” The edict is in the Records of the Grand Historian.
The Huainanzi says: “Yao set up a drum for those who dared to remonstrate. Shun raised a post for criticism.” (尧置敢谏之鼓，舜立诽谤之木) Asked what Yao’s post for criticism was, the scholar Cui Bao answered in his Notes on Things Old and New (古今注): “It is today’s huabiao.” Some called it the marker post, he explained, “because it shows that the king accepts remonstrance,” and also to mark the roads.
Huabiao columns stand in front of Tiananmen in Beijing.
In his essay Without Litigation (无讼), from the book From the Soil (乡土中国), the sociologist Fei Xiaotong describes how village disputes were settled. He notes that “mediation” is a new word. The old word was 评理, to weigh what is reasonable.
The respected elder who settled the case, Fei writes, “always gave both sides of the dispute a scolding,” and then a lecture.
On a bridge at Xiapi, the young Zhang Liang met an old man in coarse clothes who dropped his shoe under the bridge. “Boy, go down and get my shoe!” Zhang Liang was startled and wanted to hit him, but because the man was old, he held back and fetched it. “Put it on me!” the old man said. Zhang Liang knelt and did so. “The boy can be taught,” said the old man.
He told Zhang Liang to meet him at dawn five days later. Twice Zhang Liang came after the old man and was sent away. The third time, he came before midnight. The old man gave him a book, the Art of War of the Grand Duke. Zhang Liang later used it to advise Liu Bang, who followed his plans. (Records of the Grand Historian)