1,153 Quotes by Confucius

Don't worry about being acknowledged by others; worry about failing to acknowledge them.

When you are ignorant about something, to know that you are ignorant about it - that is knowledge.

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.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

To acknowledge our faults when we are blamed, is modesty; to discover them to one's friends in ingenuousness, is confidence; but to preach them to all the world, if one does not take care, is pride.

Only after Winter comes do we know that the pine and the cypress are the last to fade.

Watch their actions, observe their motives, examine wherein they dwell content; won't you know what kind of person they are?

There is one single thread binding my way together...the way of the Master consists in doing one's best...that is all.

The whole end of speech is to be understood.