Practical Wisdom for Daily Life — The Analects

Duke Ling asks about war; Confucius says he knows ritual vessels, not military matters, and leaves. In Chen the party runs out of food and followers fall ill. Tsze-lu asks whether a superior man should suffer like this; Confucius answers that the superior man can endure want, but the mean man in want collapses into license. He tells Tsze-kung he is not collecting facts; he seeks one unity running through them. Few know virtue. Shun governs by sitting reverently. Tsze-chang wants approval everywhere; Confucius says sincere words and careful actions work even among strangers, and Tsze-chang writes the counsel on his sash. Historiographer Yu stays straight as an arrow; Chu Po-yu serves in good government and rolls his principles up in bad. Know when to speak and when silence is the error. Sharpen your tools before serving a state. Yen Yuan gets a cultural program: Hsia seasons, Yin carriage, Zhou cap, Shao music, and banish licentious Chang songs. The middle turns from survival to standards. Take no distant problem lightly; sorrow arrives near. Confucius has not seen anyone who loves virtue the way people love beauty. Require much of yourself and little of others. When a whole day passes without righteousness and full of small cleverness, that is a hard case. The superior man makes righteousness essential, performed with propriety, humility, and sincerity. He is distressed by his lack of ability, not by being unknown; he seeks in himself, not in others. Tsze-kung asks for one word for life: reciprocity, what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. When the multitude hates or likes a person, examine before you follow either mood. Closing is practical and plain. Specious words confound virtue; small impatience confounds great plans. A whole day and night of thinking without learning accomplishes less than study. The superior man wants truth more than salary. Knowledge must be held by virtue, dignity, and propriety in sequence or excellence fails. Virtue is yours to perform; not even your teacher can take that duty. Teaching should have no class distinction. Different courses cannot plan together. Language only needs to convey meaning. When the blind music master visits, Confucius announces each step, mat, and guest by name. Tsze-chang asks whether that is proper. Yes, Confucius says: that is the rule for those who lead the blind. Book XV ends on that small courtesy, not a triumph.