Confucius Quotes
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Don't let your past determine your destiny.
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How great is the path proper to the Sage! Like overflowing water, it sends forth and nourishes all things, and rises up to the height of heaven. All-complete is its greatness! It embraces the three hundred rules of ceremony, and the three thousand rules of demeanor. It waits for the proper man, and then it is trodden. Hence it is said, 'Only by perfect virtue can the perfect path, in all its courses, be made a fact.'
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Great as heaven and earth are, men still find some things in them with which to be dissatisfied. Thus it is that, were the superior man to speak of his way in all its greatness, nothing in the world would be found able to embrace it, and were he to speak of it in its minuteness, nothing in the world would be found able to split it.
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Which demands a lot of himself and some others, will be free from hatred.
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Tell people - and they may forget... show them - they may remember... but involve them and they will understand.
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If a man withdraws his mind from the love of beauty, and applies it as sincerely to the love of the virtuous; if, in serving his parents, he can exert his utmost strength; if, in serving his prince, he can devote his life; if in his intercourse with his friends, his words are sincere – although men say that he has not learned, I will certainly say that he has.
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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?
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Gentlemen should not waste their time on trivial games -- they should play go.
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If you want to change the world, first change your heart.
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If you don't know how to serve men, why worry about serving the gods?
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Of all that Heaven produces and nourishes, there is none so great as man.
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He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.
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In your promises cleave to what is right, And you will be able to fulfill your word.
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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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The man of wisdom is never of two minds; the man of benevolence never worries; the man of courage is never afraid.
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The Master said, A gentleman, in his plans, thinks of the Way; he does not think how he is going to make a living. Even farming sometimes entails 5 times of shortage; and even learning may incidentally lead to high pay. But a gentleman's anxieties concern the progress of the Way; he has no anxiety concerning poverty.
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Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.
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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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The whole end of speech is to be understood.
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Cultivated people foster what is good in others, not what is bad. Petty people do the opposite.
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Worry not that no one knows you; seek to be worth knowing.
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Those who do not study are only cattle dressed up in men's clothes.
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There is nothing more visible than what is secret, and nothing more manifest than what is minute.
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If your desire is for good, the people will be good.