Zhu Xi, a great scholar of Neo-Confucianism in the Southern Song Dynasty, expressed his views on the spirit of self-improvement

The greatest contributor to carrying forward the Confucian spirit of self-improvement must be the great Confucian Zhu Xi of the Southern Song Dynasty. Zhu Xi passed the Jinshi examination at the age of nineteen. He served as the prefect of Nankang in Jiangxi, Zhangzhou in Fujian, and governor of eastern Zhejiang. He was an upright and promising official, promoted the construction of academies, served as minister and lecturer of Huanzhang Pavilion, and lectured for Ningzong of Song Dynasty. In his later years, he was banned by the Qingyuan Party and was listed as the leader of pseudo-study. He was demoted and worshiped in the ancestral hall. He died in the sixth year of Qingyuan (1200) at the age of seventy-one. Later, he was posthumously awarded the title of Grand Master and Duke of Hui State, and was given the posthumous title Wen. , called Zhu Wengong in his old life.