Confucius Quotes

1. "Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious, that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is, right. If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume, might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not done, man has been given the power of advancement rather than of retrogression. The Old and New Testaments remain, like other sacred writings of other lands, of value as records of the past and for such good lessons as they inculcate. Like the ancient writers of the Bible our thoughts should rest upon this life and our duties here. "To perform the duties of this world well, troubling not about another, is the prime wisdom," says Confucius, great sage and teacher. The next world and its duties we shall consider when we are placed in it."
Author: Andrew Carnegie

2. "Confucius is like the Torah, rules to follow. And Lao-Tzu is even more conservative, saying that if you do nothing you won't break any rules. You have to let tradition fall sometime, you have to take action, you have to eat bacon."
Author: Christopher Moore

3. "Tzu Chang asked Confucius about jen. Confucius said, "If you can practice these five things with all the people, you can be called jen."Tzu Chang asked what they were.Confucius said, "Courtesy, generosity, honesty, persistence, and kindness.If you are courteous, you will not be disrespected; if you are generous, you will gain everything. If you are honest, people will rely on you. If you are persistent you will get results. If you are kind, you can employ people."
Author: Confucius

4. "When the head of state of family thinks first of gouging out an income, he must perforce do it through small men; and even if they are clever at their job, if one employ such inferior characters in state and family business the tilled fields will go rack swamp and ruin and edged calamities will mount up to the full.... This is the meaning of: A state does not profit by profits - Pound's translation of Confucius"
Author: Ezra Pound

5. "Yes, but bad language is bound to make in addition bad government, whereas good language is not bound to make bad government. That again is clear Confucius: if the orders aren't clear they can't be carried out. Lloyd George's laws were such a mess, the lawyers never knew what they meant. And Talleyrand proclaimed that they changed the meaning of words between one conference and another. The means of communication breaks down, and that of course is what we are suffering now. We are enduring the drive to work on the subconscious without appealing to the reason. They repeat a trade name with the music a few times, and then repeat the music without it so that the music will give you the name. I think of the assault. We suffer from the use of language to conceal thought and to withhold all vital and direct answers. There is the definite use of propaganda, forensic language, merely to conceal and mislead."
Author: Ezra Pound

6. "Confucius was a humanist and an agnostic."
Author: Hu Shih

7. "Why don't the names of Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius offend people? The reason is that these others didn't claim to be God, but Jesus did."
Author: Josh McDowell

8. "Plantie is a very strong Protestant, that is to say, he's against all churches, especially the Protestant: and he thinks a lot of Buddha, Karma and Confucius. He is also a bit of an anarchist and three or four years ago he took up Einstein and vitamins."
Author: Joyce Cary

9. "In the liquid amber within the ivory porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet reticence of Confucius, the piquancy of Laotse, and the ethereal aroma of Sakyamuni himself."
Author: Kakuzō Okakura

10. "The first person to promulgate the Golden Rule, which was the bedrock of this empathic spirituality, was Confucius 500 years before Christ."
Author: Karen Armstrong

11. "Jesus was not revolutionary because he said we should love God and each other. Moses said that first. So did Buddha, Confucius, and countless other religious leaders we've never heard of. Madonna, Oprah, Dr. Phil, the Dali Lama, and probably a lot of Christian leaders will tell us that the point of religion is to get us to love each other. "God loves you" doesn't stir the world's opposition. However, start talking about God's absolute authority, holiness, ... Christ's substitutionary atonement, justification apart from works, the necessity of new birth, repentance, baptism, Communion, and the future judgment, and the mood in the room changes considerably."
Author: Michael S. Horton

12. "I "love" reading.It makes me feel like I am swallowing up Christ, Homer, Confucius, Newton, Franklin, Socrates, Caesar, and the whole world into one gigantic invincible Sir Moffat. Mine is creative reading. I read building empires in mind. I pray I won't read and read and forget to marry."
Author: Moffat Machingura

13. "As Confucius once said, "He who does nothing is the one who does nothing."'Gabby pondered the words, the furrowed her brow. 'did Confucius really say that?'Sunglasses in place, Stephanie managed the tiniest of shrugs. 'No, but who cared? The point is, they handled, and most likely they found some sort of self-satisfaction in their industrious-ness. Who am I to deprive them of that?'Gabby put her hands on her hips. 'Or maybe you just wanted to be lazy.'Stephanie grinned. 'Like Jesus said, "Blessed are the lazy who lie in boats, for they shall inherit a suntan."''Jesus didn't say that.''True,' Stephanie afreed, sitting up. She removed her glasses, stared through them, then wiped them on a towel. 'But again, who cares?"
Author: Nicholas Sparks

14. "In the ancient Book of History, upon which Confucius himself based his philosophy, it is said...The people must be cherished, The people must not be oppressed,The people are the root of the country.If the root is firm, the country is tranquil.And you remember, she continued, that, when asked which was most important to a state, food, weapons or the trust of the people, the sage replied that weapons could be given up, and even food be sacrificed, but the state itself would be destroyed if the people had no confidence in it."
Author: Pearl S. Buck

15. "Somehow I had learned from Thoreau, who doubtless learned it from Confucius, that if a man comes to do his own good for you, then must you flee that man and save yourself"
Author: Pearl S. Buck

16. "No matter how accomplished one might be in any branch of learning or art, one would have to be condemned to hell, if on where not endowed with th five cardinal virtues of Confucius-benevolence, justice, courtesy, wisdom and fidelity"
Author: Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

17. "You know, I met a wise man centuries ago in China who said to me, ‘He who lets fear rule him, has fear for a master. (Acheron)Confucius? (Talon)No, Minh-Quan. He was a fisherman who used to sell what I'm told was the best zong zi ever made. (Acheron)"
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

18. "Confucius say if man want to grow one row of corn, first must shovel one ton of shit."
Author: Stephen King

19. "Confucius say, man with hand in pocket feel cocky all day"
Author: Sylvia Day

20. "Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman – how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle."
Author: Zhuangzi

Confucius Quotes Pictures