Whilst reading Michael Masterson's Early to Rise, I came across reference to a little booklet called "A Collection of Confucius's Sayings," and found these maxims you might find useful:

• There is a single saying that can govern one's life. It is expressed with the word shu, which means never do to others what you would not want them to do to you.
   

• He who is able to put five sorts of morals into practice in this world may be called good. The five are courtesy, breadth, good faith, diligence, and clemency.
   

• The great man understands what is right. The petty man understands what is profitable.
   

• When you see a good man, think of emulating him. When you see a bad man, examine yourself.
   

• When honesty overbalances refinement, crudeness results. When refinement overbalances honesty, there is superficiality. Only when refinement and honesty are duly balanced will the great man emerge.
   

• Set your heart upon the Way, support yourself by virtue, lean upon goodness, and seek distraction in the arts.
   

• With coarse food to eat, cold water to drink, and the bended arm as a pillow, happiness may still exist.
   

• The true gentleman is conciliatory but not accommodating. The common man is accommodating but not conciliatory.
   

• The demands that a great man makes are on himself; those of a petty man are upon others.
   

• There are nine things of which great men must be mindful: to see when they look; to hear when they listen; to be gentle in appearance; to be respectful in manners; to be faithful in words; to be earnest in service; to inquire when in doubt; to think when in anger; to be just when they have an advantage.
   

And while you wonder at the wisdom from a Chinese philosopher from thousands of years ago, what about considering some wisdom about teeth...

I came across an article called A Tooth for a Tooth which asks what happens if one of your teeth goes AWOL? Well currently, the stump will be extracted or covered with a porcelain crown—both procedures that are less than optimal.

That may soon change, though, thanks to some Canadian scientists at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. In June 2006, the researchers filed a patent for a new device that is supposed to help re-grow missing teeth.

The tool, which operates with low-intensity pulsed ultrasound, has so far only been tested on a dozen dental patients in Canada, but apparently with great success.

"Right now, we plan to use it to fix fractured or diseased teeth, as well as asymmetric jawbones, but it may also help hockey players or children who had their tooth knocked out," Jie Chen, an engineering professor and nano-circuit design expert, told AFP.

The tiny device, which gently massages gums and stimulates tooth growth from the root, is smaller than a pea and will be worn in the mouth, mounted on braces or plastic crowns. It will have to be activated for 20 minutes per day for four months to stimulate new growth, says Chen.

Even though the new technology is still at the prototype stage, the research team expects to commercialize it within the next two years.

The only downside: part of the tooth still has to be in place. We hope the next stage will be a solution that naturally replaces extracted teeth.

I am thankful that I still have my wisdom teeth.