Confucius

I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances.

Confucius

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.

Confucius

I saw some piglets suckling their dead mother. After a short while they shuddered and went away. They had sensed that she could no longer see them and that she wasn’t like them any more. What they loved in their mother wasn’t her body, but whatever it was that made her body live.

Confucius

I slept and dreamt life is beauty, I woke and found life is duty.

Confucius

I transmit but do not create. I place my trust in the teachings of antiquity.

Confucius

If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with the rites of propriety? If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with music?

Confucius

If a man has no humaneness what can his propriety be like? If a man has no humaneness what can his happiness be like?

Confucius

If a man remembers what is right at the sign of profit, is ready to lay down his life in the face of danger, and does not forget sentiments he has repeated all his life when he has been in straitened circumstances for a long time, he may be said to be a complete man.

Confucius

If a man sets his heart on benevolence he will be free from evil.

Confucius

If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.

Confucius