Confucius Quotes
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Man is born with uprightness. If one loses it, he will be lucky if he escapes with his life.
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A gentleman considers justice to be essential in everything. He practices it according to the principles of propriety. He brings it forth in modesty and faithfully completes it. This is indeed a gentleman.
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Don't be concerned that you have no position; be concerned how you may fit yourself to occupy one.
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Many seek happiness higher than men; others beneath him. But happiness is the same height as man.
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People with virtue must speak out; People who speak are not all virtuous.
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If I cannot get men who steer a middle course to associate with, I would far rather have the impetuous and hasty. For the impetuous at any rate assert themselves.
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A workman who wants to do his work well must first prepare his tools.
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On matters beyond his ken a gentleman speaks with caution. If names are not right, words are misused. When words are misused, affairs go wrong. When affairs go wrong, courtesy and music droop, law and justice fail. And when law and justice fail them, a people can move neither hand nor foot. So a gentleman must be ready to put names in speech, to put words into deeds. A gentleman is nowise careless of words.
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The gentleman holds justice to be of highest importance. If a gentleman has courage but neglects justice, he becomes insurgent. If an inferior man has courage but neglects justice, he becomes a thief.
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The Master said, “A true gentleman is one who has set his heart upon the Way. A fellow who is ashamed merely of shabby clothing or modest meals is not even worth conversing with.” (Analects 4.9)
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I have never seen a man as fond of virtue as of women.
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Humankind differs from the animals only by a little and most people throw that away.
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Wealth and rank are what men desire, but unless they be obtained in the right way they may not be possessed. Poverty and obscurity are what men detest; but unless prosperity be brought about in the right way, they are not to be abandoned.
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To give oneself ernestly to securing righteousness and justice among the people, and while respecting the gods and demons, to keep aloof from them, that may be called wisdom.
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There are three things to beware of through life: when a man is young, let him beware of his appetites; when he is middle-aged, of his passions; and when old, of covetousness, especially.
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Heaven gives long life to the just and the intelligent.
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He who learns but does not think, is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.
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Reading without thinking will confuse you.Thinking without reading will place you in danger.
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The gentleman sees what is right while the small man sees what is profitable.
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The man of noble mind seeks to achieve the good in others and not their evil. The little-minded man is the reverse of this.
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Tea tempers the spirits and harmonizes the mind, dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness, lightens or refreshes the body, and clears the perceptive faculties.
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Time flows away like the water in the river.
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To learn without thinking is labour in vain, to think without learning is desolation.
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Being in humaneness is good. If we select other goodness and thus are far apart from humaneness, how can we be the wise?