Discover the most popular and inspiring quotes and sayings on the topic of Confucian. Share them with your friends on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, and let the world be inspired by their powerful messages. Here are the Top 100 Confucian Quotes And Sayings by 87 Authors including Muriel Barbery,Russell Freedman,Lao-Tzu,Zhuangzi,Ameen Rihani for you to enjoy and share.
Conclusion: better to be a thinking monk than a postmodern
thinker.
I sensed that Confucius is an interesting character. This is someone who lived over 2,500 years ago and is still speaking to us. That people are still reading and repeating what he said so long ago is something I find quite fascinating.
When the Great Tao (Way or Method) ceased to be observed, benevolence and righteousness came into vogue.
To regard the fundamental as the essence, to regard things as coarse, to regard accumulation as deficiency, and to dwell quietly alone with the spiritual and the intelligent - herein lie the techniques of Tao of the ancients.
Bolshevism may be Marxian in theory, but it is Hulagoesque in practice. It may be of European descent, but it is Oriental in tradition. Oriental in mood. Oriental in temperament.
Appearance over substance was a cultural theme in China
Does one scent appeal more than another? Do you prefer this flavor, or that feeling? Is your practice sacred and your work profane? Then your mind is separated: from itself, from oneness, from the Tao.
In stark contrast with the views of the Greek philosophers and with those of the rest of western intellectuals to the present day, Chinese Taoist thought always defended individual liberty and laissez-faire while attacking the systematic and coercive use of violence typical of government.
Western philosophy must be discussed; eastern philosophy must be experienced.
Every political sect has its esoteric and its exoteric school
its abstract doctrines for the initiated; its visible symbols, its imposing forms, its mythological fables, for the vulgar.
Philistinism! - We have not the expression in English. Perhaps we have not the word because we have so much of the thing.
All definitions of civilization along to a conjugation which goes: I am civilized, you belong to a culture, he is a barbarian.
Confucius himself has repeatedly taught that external appurtenances are as little a part of propriety as sounds are of music.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty - and, by which definition, a philosopher - dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Taoism means streching your being, becoming both a man and a woman and joining within yourself, to be the heavens themselves, to stretch your awareness beyond the breaking point until all opposites are reconciled within yourself.
My children were educated in what were then Chinese schools, and they learned English as a subject. But they made up when they went to English-language universities. So they didn't lose out. They had a basic set of traditional Confucian values. Not my grandchildren.
Adept Lu spent a night at Stone Date, and the gatekeeper asked: Where are you from? From the House of Confucius, replied Lu. Isn't he the one who knows it's hopeless, but keeps trying anyway?
Well I travelled quite a lot in the east, and one of the things that impressed me greatly was the buddhist notion of the continuity of things, the wheel of life which is what we're talking about, the ever turning wheel.
An illuminating read for every classical scholar engaged with the current quest for the subject's roots, and the excavation of the way that it has evolved over the past century and a half.
A Universalist, your heart cannot but dilate, and your affections widen, until the divine expansion, like the ambient atmosphere, embraces every form, which is acted upon by an immortal spirit.
Confucius himself taught that the more laws a society has, the less people will obey them and that societies that depend on laws to control the behavior of their citizens will eventually self-destruct.
Our western mind lacking all culture in this respect, has never yet devised a concept, not even a name for "the union of opposites through the middle path", that most fundamental item of inward experience which could respectably be set against the Chinese concept of Tao.
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)
Benedictine spirituality is a consistent one: live life normally, live life thouhtfully, live life profouncly, live life well. Never neglect and never exaggerate. It is a lesson that a world full of cults and fads and workaholics and short courses in difficult subjects needs dearly to learn.
I think that at heart I am an old-fashioned Chinese, really I am.
China is, in fact, the only country in the world to be ruled for hundreds of years, not by the nobility, nor by soldiers, nor even by the priesthood, but by scholars.
The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment; the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.
I have assimilated Western thought and its clarity, but, in fact, I am solidly rooted in the passive Eastern nature and remain rebellious to any action.
buddha nature, or basic goodness.
Only with maturity did I come to appreciate my own Chinese roots: not just the food and the ancient history, but also the philosophy of child-rearing and the respect for education and knowledge.
You of the West are practical in business, practical in great inventions, but we of the East are practical in religion. You make commerce your business; we make religion our business.
Was at the core of primeval beliefs. Its names are as old as history itself ... Dharmakaya, Tao, Brahman.
Every powerful movement has had its philosophy which has gripped the mind, fired the imagination and captured the devotion of its adherents.
Chinese culture in general is not very religious. Confucianism is more a code of ethics than a religion, and ancestor worship is a way for parents to control you even after they're dead.
I was a student at Peking University for close to a decade, while a so-called 'knowledge explosion' was rapidly expanding. I was searching for not just knowledge, but also to mold a temperament, to cultivate a scholarly outlook.
The simple style is bad for the savage because he does worse than to obtain the luxuries of life; it is good for the philosopher because he does better than to work for them. The question is whether you can bear freedom ...
My tendency to idealize Western civilization arises from my nationalistic desire to use the West in order to reform China. But this has led me to overlook the flaws of Western culture.
If you're very liberal, then you should go and find a very liberal Zen teacher, a liberal interpretation of the doctrines of the Soto or Rinzai schools.
In East Asia generally, the notion of a Supreme Being, so essential to Western religions, is replaced by that of a Supreme State of Being, an impersonal perfection from which beings including man are separated only by delusion.
Tantric Zen is not being kinky; nor is it being conservative and austere. It is eclectic. It is a real mixture of all things.
I'm Catholic In My Complications And Buddhist In My Aspirations'
~George O'dowd
Confucius say, man with hand in pocket feel cocky all day
This mystical stream [contemplative prayer] is the Western bridge to Far Eastern spirituality.
Much comment has been given lately to the Code of the Samurai,
the Art of Death which makes our soldiers exult in self- sacrifice; but scarcely any attention has been drawn to Teaism, which represents so much of our Art of Life.
Just imagine what would happen if practicing physicians, the ones who have come into contact directly with suffering humanity, had some acquaintance with Eastern systems of healing. The Spirit of the East surges through every pore as a balm for all afflictions.
Taoism is the gentle way. The path of least resistence.
The idea of universal brotherhood is innate in the catholic nature of Chinese thought; it was the dominant concept of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, whom events have proved time and again to be not a visionary but one of the world's greatest realists.
Lao Tsu says the way of life is ancient, timeless. It is existence which he calls the Tao - a mysterious source, beyond understanding, and all of us are a reflection, if not that source of life ourselves.
There should be a harmonious blend of religion, philosophy and art for man to live healthily in the world.
Confucius, who had said it was better not to know about ghosts and gods, but rather to focus on the world we lived in.
There are few sharper contrasts in China between the desire to find harmony and the instinct to impose order.
Taoism extols the virtue of flexibility. What survives on earth is what effortlessly adapts to the changing environment and changing circumstances.
Above all the genuine philosopher will generally seek lucidity and clarity and will always strive not to be like a turbid, raging, rain-swollen stream, but much more like a Swiss lake, which, in its peacefulness, combines great depth with a great clarity that just reveals its great depth.
From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness.
[The five cardinal virtues of the Chinese are (1) humanity or benevolence; (2) uprightness of mind; (3) self-respect, self- control, or "proper feeling;" (4) wisdom; (5) sincerity or good faith.
Zhang Yimou tried to use martial arts to talk about Chinese culture, Chinese people. What do they think, what do they want and what do they hope.
I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist and Confucian.
If princes and kings could follow it (Tao), all things would by themselves abide, Heaven and Earth would unite and sweet dew would fall. People would by themselves find harmony, without being commanded.
We may affirm, then, that the main drift of the later Renaissance was away from a humanism that favored a free expansion toward a humanism that was in the highest degree disciplinary and selective.
Lao-tze's Taoism is the exhibition of a way or method of living which men should cultivate as the highest and purest development of their nature.
The ancient teaching of Tao tells us that knowing what you really are is wisdom, and living it is virtue.
The essence of the teachings is to lose self importance and to care more for the welfare of others and the magical world around us, than we do for ourselves and our own self images.
A richly detailed, poignant, and utterly fascinating look into another culture and how it is cross-pollinated by our own. It brings to mind the work of Ha Jin in its power and revelation of the new.
"What's that?" the Unbeliever asked.
"Wisdom from the Western Taoist,"I said.
"It sounds like something from Winnie-the-Pooh ," he said.
"It is," I said.
"That's not about Taoism," he said.
"Oh, yes it is," I said."
Even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart.
I am so far from thinking the maxims of Confucius and Jesus Christ to differ, that I think the plain and simple maxims of the former, will help to illustrate the more obscure ones of the latter, accommodated to the then way of speaking.
I am a Buddhist.
Few people have ever seriously wished to be exclusively rational. The good life which most desire is a life warmed by passions and touched with that ceremonial grace which is impossible without some affectionate loyalty to traditional form and ceremonies.
A mystic sees beyond the illusion of separateness into the intricate web of life in which all things are expressions of a single Whole. You can call this web "God, the Tao, the Great Spirit, the Infinite Mystery, Mother or Father," but it can be known only as love.
You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own ruling faculty or externals, and apply yourself either to things within or without you; that is, be either a philosopher, or one of the vulgar.
They learned to live contently with small things, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy not respectable, and to be rich not wealthy. They let the sacred and unconscious bloom amidst the common, rendering it all extraordinary.
Conservatism is the tacit acknowledgement that all that is finally important in human experience is behind us; that the crucial explorations have been undertaken, and that it is given to man to know what are the great truths that emerged from them.
The Confucian concept and Chinese ideograms for 'woman' and for 'slave' are the same.
Like most Chinese, I am basically a fatalist - too sophisticated for religion and too superstitious to deny the gods.
We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves.
When your mind is empty of prejudices you can see the Tao. When your heart is empty of desires you can follow the Tao.
The essence of Taoism is really expressed by these few words. Taoism is the way of the child, the way of the fool, the way of someone who doesn't need to be noticed.
I've been practicing modalities of Eastern philosophy since about 1972. What I've learned through my meditation is a sense of equanimity, a sense of all things being equal.
Some call it Marxism - I call it Judaism.
Historically, there had been many periods of Chinese Renaissance.
Who pursued a brilliant academic career studying ancient philology, transformational ethics and the wave harmonic theory of historical perception,
No authentic conservative metaphysic can be operable when the discipline of God and the discipline of the soul have been ceded to the doxai, the dialectical structures and superstructures of modern life.
A voluminous, prosaick, and drivelling Monk.
Confucius say if man want to grow one row of corn, first must shovel one ton of shit.
The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense.
With the harmonious balance between materialist nature and spiritual attitude, it is possible to be affluent yet with the soul of a saint. Such a state is a synthesis of matter and soul; the Rich Monk is a way to be rich in two ways.
I could not bank on the phlegmatic Chinese; I would have to take care of it myself. This would be safer and also consistent with my own responsibility. The latter is the anarch's ultimate authority.
I'm into a lot of Eastern philosophy. It's kind of like theosophy; it's about finding the relationships between all the great religions and focusing in on the good stuff.
Laozi was an ancient Chinese philosopher. According to Chinese tradition, Laozi lived in the 6th century BC, however many historians contend that Laozi
harmonialism" - a belief that spiritual, physical, and even economic well-being flow from a person's connection with metaphysical forces of the cosmos - manifested itself in such new forms of thought as Spiritualism, Christian Science, New Thought, and Theosophy.
I should like to say that I am as proud of my Chinese heritage and background as I am devoted to modern science, a part of human civilization of Western origin, to which I have dedicated and I shall continue to dedicate my work.
The parallels to modern physics [with mysticism] appear not only in the Vedas of Hinduism, in the I Ching, or in the Buddhist sutras, but also in the fragments of Heraclitus, in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, or in the teachings of the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan.
It is one thing to teach a dynamic Oriental philosophy and religious code; it is quite another to put such a discipline to the test by successfully living it in the face of ridicule.
Western humanism has religious and transcendent sources without which it is incomprehensible to itself.
We believe elegance can be casual. We believe gracefulness can be compatible with fits of laughter. We believe in living a colorful life
The Great Tao flows everywhere, to the left and to the right, all things depend on it to exist, and it does not abandon them. To its accomplishments it lays no claims. It loves and nourished all things, but does not lord it over them.
Pragmatism ... reflects with almost disarming candor the spirit of the prevailing business culture, the very same attitude of 'being practical' as counter to which philosophical meditation as such was conceived.
Before the scientific rationalism took hold of our minds and before we became succumbed to a materialistic worldview, the Western philosophy was holistic and relational, and even now there are many scientists in the West seeing things totally interconnected.
Whomsoever you follow, howsoever great, see to it that you follow the spirit of the master and not imitate him mechanically.
Confucius sat down to rest, and his students immediately started asking him questions. On that day, he was in a good mood and so decided to answer. Someone asked him: