Analects of Confucius

Is it not a pleasure, having learned something, to try it out at due intervals?

Is it not a joy to have friends come from afar?

Is it not gentlemanly not to take offence when others fail to appreciate your abilities?

A gentleman who lacks gravity does not inspire awe.  A gentleman who studies is unlikely to be inflexible.

Do not accept as friend anyone who is not as good as you.

When you make a mistake, do not be afraid of mending your ways.

To be trustworthy in word is close to being moral in that it enables one’s words to be repeated.

It is not the failures of others to appreciate your abilities that should trouble you, but rather your failure to appreciate theirs.

The Odes are three hundred in number.  They can be summed up in one phrase, “Swerving not from the right path.”

Guide them by edicts, keep them in line with punishments, and the common people will stay out of trouble but will have no sense of shame.  Guide them by virtue, keep them in line with the rites, and they will, besides having a sense of shame, reform themselves.

Nowadays for a man to be filial means no more than that he is able to provide his parents with food.  Even hounds and horses are, in some way, provided with food.  If a man shows no reverence, where is the difference?

"I can speak to Hui all day without his disagreeing with me in any way.  Thus he would seem to be stupid.  However, when I take a closer look at what he does in private after he has withdrawn from my presence, I discover that it does, in fact, throw light on what I said.  Hui is not stupid after all."

Look at the means a man employs, observe the path he takes and examine where he feels at home.  In what way is a man’s true character hidden from view?  In what way is a man’s true character hidden from view?

A man is worthy of being a teacher who gets to know what is new by keeping fresh in his mind what he is already familiar with.

The gentleman enters into associations but not cliques; the small man enters into cliques but not associations.

If one learns from others but does not think, one will be bewildered.  If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril.

“Yu, shall I tell you what it is to know.  To say you know when you know, and to say you do not when you do not, that is knowledge.”

Use your ears widely but leave out what is doubtful; repeat the rest with caution and you will make few mistakes.  Use your eyes widely and leave out what is hazardous; put the rest into practice with caution and you will have few regrets.  When in your speech you make few mistakes and in your action you have few regrets, an official career will follow as a matter of course.

Raise the straight and set them over the crooked and the common people will look up to you.  Raise the crooked and set them over the straight and the common people will not look up to you.

Rule over them with dignity and they will be reverent; treat them with kindness and they will do their best; raise the good and instruct those who are backward and they will be imbued with enthusiasm.

The Book of History says, “Oh! Simply by being a good son and friendly to his brothers a man can exert an influence upon government.”  In so doing a man is, in fact, taking part in government.  How can there be any question of his having actively to “take part in government”?

When you have offended against Heaven, there is nowhere you can turn to in your prayers.

The ruler should employ the services of his subjects in accordance with the rites.  A subject should serve his ruler by doing his best.