Confucius Quotes
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I have never seen one who really loves goodness or one who really hates wickedness. One who really loves goodness will not place anything above it. One who really hates wickedness will practice goodness in such a way that wickedness will have no chance to get at him. Is there anyone who has devoted his whole strength to doing good for even as long as a single day? I have not seen anyone give up such an attempt because he had not the strength to go on. Perhaps there is such a case, but I have never seen it.
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A lion chased me up a tree, and I greatly enjoyed the view from the top.
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A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present? If he reach the age of forty or fifty, and has not made himself heard of, then indeed he will not be worth being regarded with respect.
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When anger rises, think of the consequences.
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As in the case of making a mound, if, before the very last basketful, I stop, then I shall have stopped. As in the case of leveling the ground, if, though tipping only one basketful, I am going forward, then I shall be making progress.
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If your plan is for one year plant rice. If your plan is for ten years plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years educate children.
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It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
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A person of character takes as much trouble to discover what is right as the lesser men take to discover what will pay.
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I never really said all those things I said.
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I do not want a friend who smiles when I smile, who weeps when I weep; for my shadow in the pool can do better than that.
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I want you to be everything that's you, deep at the center of your being.
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The more you know yourself, the more you forgive yourself.
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What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
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The superior man is quiet and calm, waiting for the appointments of heaven, while the mean man walks in dangerous paths, looking for lucky occurrences.
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I know how the birds fly, how the fishes swim, how animals run. But there is the Dragon. I cannot tell how it mounts on the winds through the clouds and flies through heaven. Today I have seen the Dragon.
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The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived.
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If we don't know life, how can we know death?
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Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you use killing at all? Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it.
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Even if I could, I would not exahnge their virtues for my own. And that is why they are intent on learning from me.
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To take what you know for what you know, and what you do not know for what you do not know, that is knowledge indeed.
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Shall I tell you what knowledge is? It is to know both what one knows and what one does not know.
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He who flatters a man is his enemy. he who tells him of his faults is his maker.
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Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.
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Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.