Chinese ancients also wore jade as a sign of moral cultivation, evident in the saying that "A man of virtue does not remove jade from his person without good reason." Confucius is believed to have likened jade's pleasing smoothness to the human virtue of benevolence, its hardness to righteousness, its diversity of color to resourcefulness and its translucence to fidelity. In Chinese ligurative speech jade is often associated with the womanly virtues of purity and chastity, the ideal woman being she who is "pure as jade and clear as ice."
