“One whose intentions and thoughts are cultivated will disregard wealth and nobility. One whose greatest concern is for the Way and righteousness will take lightly kings and dukes. It is simply that when one examines oneself on the inside, external goods carry little weight. A saying goes, "The gentleman makes things his servants. The petty man is servant to things."”

Written on the Bedchamber Door of Charles II, as quoted in The Book of Days : A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities (1832) by Robert Chambers, Viol. II, July 26, p. 126.

Daedalus or Science and the Future (1923)
Variant: The conservative has little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires.

Undated manuscript outline of a sermon on "Cooperative/Noble Competition" http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/cooperativenoble-competition, at the King center; King takes Luke 22:24 as the basis of this message.
Context: Jesus himself saw the power that competition hold over men, He did not ignore it. Yet he does something with the conception of competition that had it been done before. He takes the conception, which has been used for lower purposes and rescues it from many of its dangers, by suggesting a higher method of its use. This is how he applied the term to his disciples. He saw them in danger of using it for low purposes. They wanted to complete for reputation and position. Which of them should be accepted greatest? Jesus say so, if you must use the power of competition, if you must compete with one another: make it as noble as you can by using it [in] noble things. Use it for a fine unselfish thing. He that is greatest among you shall serve. Use it for human good. Shall be the most useful; compete with one another in humility. See which can be the truest servant. It seems that Christ says — use it but use it for higher and holier purpose. Use it not to surpass one another in esteem, but use it to increase the comment of usefulness and brother’s help...
Imagine the change that would come about if the Churches applied this truth. Now we are bogged not in competitive denominationalism, which is a destroying the warm blood of Protestant Church. Which of them shall be accounted greatest? Let the churches stop trying to outstrip each other in the number of their adherents, the size of its sanctuary, the abundance of wealth. If we must compete let us compete to see which can move toward the greatest attainment of truth, the greatest service of the poor, and the greatest salvation of the soul and bodies of men.
Suppose the teaching of Jesus should be accepted by competing nations of the world, particularly Russia and Am[er]ica. They would no longer compete to see which could make the bigger atom bombs, or which cold best perpetuate its imperialism, but which could best serve humanity. This would be a better world.

“In our minds, lad. In our minds. The traitor, the self; the self that cries I want to live; let the world burn so long as I can live! The little traitor soul in us, in the dark, like the worm in the apple.”
Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 9, "Orm Embar" (Arren and Ged)

Myth at the end of Julian's oration to the cynic Heracleios, as translated in The Emperor Julian : Paganism and Christianity (1879) http://www.third-millennium-library.com/MedievalHistory/Julian_the_Emperor/CHAPTER_VI.html by Gerald Henry Rendall, Ch. VI : Julian's Personal Religion, p. 138
General sources
Context: "Suppose that I and Athene, at the behest of Zeus", said Helios, "were to make you steward of all these in the room of him that hath the inheritance." Then the young man clung to him once more, and besought him greatly that he might remain there. But he said, "Be not very rebellious, lest the excess of my love be turned to the fierceness of hatred."
So the young man answered, "Most mighty Helios, and thee Athene, and Zeus himself, I do adjure, do with me what ye will."
After this Hermes, suddenly reappearing, filled him with new courage, for now he thought he had found a guide for his return journey, and his sojourn on earth. And Athene said, "Listen, most goodly child of mine and of this good sire divine! This heir, you see, finds no pleasure in the best of his shepherds, while the flatterers and rogues have made him their subject and slave. Consequently the good love him not, while his supposed friends wrong and injure him most fatally. Take heed therefore when you return, not to put the flatterer before the friend. Give ear, my son, to yet a second admonition. Yon sleeper is habitually deceived; do you therefore be sober and watch, that the flatterer may never deceive and cheat you by a show of friendly candor, just as some sooty and grimy smith by dressing in white and plastering his cheeks with enamel might finally induce you to give him one of your daughters to wife. List now to a third admonition. Set a strong watch upon yourself: reverence us and us alone, and of men him that is like us and none other. You see what tricks self-consciousness and dumb-foundering faint-heartedness have played with yonder idiot." Great Helios here took up the discourse and said, "Choose your friends, then treat them as friends; do not regard them like slaves or servants, but associate with them frankly and simply and generously; not saying one thing of them and thinking something else. See how distrust towards friends has damaged yonder heritor. Love your subjects as we love you. Let respect toward us take precedence of all goods: for we are your benefactors and friends and saviours."
At these words the young man's heart was full, and he made ready there and then to obey the Gods implicitly always. "Away, then", said Helios, "and good hope go with you. For we shall be with you everywhere, I and Athene and Hermes here, and with us all the Gods that are in Olympus, and Gods of the air and of the earth, and all manner of deities everywhere, so long as you are holy toward us, loyal to your friends, kindly to your subjects, ruling and guiding them for their good. Never yield yourself a slave to your own desires or theirs. …"

About King Charles II of England, as quoted in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. XLIV (January - June 1857) p. 592; It is said to that this was written on the door of Charles II’s bedchamber, and that on seeing it, the king replied, “This is very true: for my words are my own, and my actions are my ministers’....”
Other

(zh-TW) 持槍作盜進行侵，利筆文章誨殺淫。
技藝人才培不易，植因造業孽緣深。

"Professional morality" (專業道德)

Source: Deng Feng-Zhou, "Deng Feng-Zhou Classical Chinese Poetry Anthology". Volume 6, Tainan, 2018: 84.

Miracle Mongers and Their Methods (1920) http://books.google.com/books?id=l0u-YrUcJeMC
Context: Disloyalty in trusted servants is one of the most disheartening things that can happen to a public performer. But it must not be thought that I say this out of personal experience: for in the many years that I have been before the public my secret methods have been steadily shielded by the strict integrity of my assistants, most of whom have been with me for years. Only one man ever betrayed my confidence, and that only in a minor matter. But then, so far as I know, I am the only performer who ever pledged his assistant to secrecy, honor and allegiance under a notarial oath.