On his return he said, ‘Has any man been hurt?’ He did not ask about the horses. The stable burned down when Confucius was at court. For example, one of the short passages in the analects is: Instead, he believed that if he simply lived virtuously, he would inspire others to do the same. These are not always commandments, because Confucius didn’t like prescribing strict rules. Around the second century B.C., Confucius’s works were collected into the Analects (Lunyu), a collection of sayings written down by his followers.

However, when Confucius was 56, he and the duke fell out over the duke’s excesses, and so Confucius left the court and wandered for 12 years.Ĭonfucius presented himself as a ‘transmitter who invented nothing’, because he believed he was teaching the natural path to good behaviour passed down from older, divine masters. According to tradition, he began government service aged 32 and served many roles, including Minister of Crime under Duke Ding in the state of Lu. in China he may have been a student of the Daoist master Lao Tzu. And five centuries before Christ, Confucius set forth his own Golden Rule: 'Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself.'Ĭover: Hard Cover.We know very little for certain about the life of the Chinese philosopher Confucius (a westernised version of his name, which means ‘Master Kong’). 'The Analects' collects his teachings on education and government, the definition of nobility, the equality of man, and the right way and purpose of living - ideas that eventually spread to the West and influenced generations of great thinkers. But then he resigned from his high post for the life of an itinerant philosopher. The edition of The Analects of Confucius is I llustrated by Yiping Xue with beautiful traditional Chinese ink paintings.īorn in China in 551 B.C., Confucius rose from poverty to the heights of his country's ruling class. The Classic Wisdom Collection is a library of ancient philosophical texts that have been re-worked as a labor of love into high-quality books with decorative edges, clean, easy to reference page design, and beautiful cover design and feel.

Confucius and the analects