Confucius · 孔子 · 551–479 BCE

The Analects

A reading edition of the Analects of Confucius in James Legge's translation — with the key ideas, the people, and the threads that run through the text laid open for study.

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499 sayings · 20 books · 14 ideas · 22 voices

讀 Read the text All twenty books, with the original ideas surfaced as you read. 字 The key ideas The handful of words — rén, lǐ, the superior man — the whole book turns on. 繫 Follow a thread Gather every saying on learning, on rule, on family, on Heaven. 人 Who is who The Master, his disciples, and the rulers and sages they argue about.

Book II · 4

‘At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning.

At thirty, I stood firm.

At forty, I had no doubts.

At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven.

At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth.

At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right.’

— The Master

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二十篇 · Twenty Books

The Library

The Analects is gathered into twenty books, most of them named for their opening words. They are not a treatise but a record — overheard conversations, judgements of character, fragments of a life — circling the same few questions of how to live.

  1. I 學而 To Learn Xué Ér · 16 sayings The keynote of the whole work: the joy of learning, the roots of virtue in the family, and the daily examination of the self.
  2. II 為政 To Govern Wéi Zhèng · 24 sayings Government by virtue rather than by force — and the Master's own life in six famous lines, from setting his heart on learning at fifteen to following it freely at seventy.
  3. III 八佾 Eight Rows Bā Yì · 26 sayings On ritual and music, and the outrage of those who usurp the forms of their betters. Ceremony without reverence is nothing.
  4. IV 里仁 Where Virtue Dwells Lǐ Rén · 26 sayings A dense chapter on benevolence: choosing where to live, the single thread that runs through all the Master's teaching, and the difference between the superior and the mean man.
  5. V 公冶長 Kung-ye Ch'ang Gōngyě Cháng · 27 sayings Confucius weighs his disciples and the men of his age — who is fit for office, who is truly virtuous, and who only seems so.
  6. VI 雍也 There is Yung Yōng Yě · 28 sayings More appraisals of character, the matchless virtue of Hui in his poverty, and the wise who delight in water, the good who delight in hills.
  7. VII 述而 Transmitting Shù Ér · 37 sayings Confucius on himself — 'a transmitter and not a maker' — eating coarse rice with joy, refusing none who came to learn, silent on the marvellous.
  8. VIII 泰伯 T'ai-po Tài Bó · 21 sayings The supreme virtue of the ancients who yielded the throne, the heavy burden the scholar carries, and praise of the sage-kings Yao, Shun, and Yu.
  9. IX 子罕 The Master Seldom Zǐ Hǎn · 30 sayings Glimpses of the Master in danger and in age — free of foregone conclusions and egoism, mourning that the phoenix does not come, urging that the work not stop one basketful short.
  10. X 鄉黨 In the Village Xiāng Dǎng · 18 sayings An intimate portrait of how Confucius actually lived: his bearing at court and at home, his dress, his food, his care in small things.
  11. XI 先進 Those of Former Times Xiān Jìn · 25 sayings The circle of disciples drawn close — their gifts and faults, and the grief of the Master at the death of Hui: 'Heaven is destroying me!'
  12. XII 顏淵 Yen Yuan Yán Yuān · 24 sayings What is benevolence? what is government? The answers given to different disciples — subdue the self and return to propriety; do not do to others what you would not wish done to yourself.
  13. XIII 子路 Tsze-lu Zǐ Lù · 30 sayings The practice of rule: lead by example, set the people an example before you weary them, and first of all rectify the names of things.
  14. XIV 憲問 Hsien Asked Xiàn Wèn · 47 sayings On shame, on the complete man, and on the famous question — recompense injury with kindness? 'Recompense injury with justice, and kindness with kindness.'
  15. XV 衛靈公 Duke Ling of Wei Wèi Líng Gōng · 41 sayings The superior man tested by want and adversity, the one word to be the rule of a life — reciprocity — and the duty of dying, if need be, to keep one's virtue whole.
  16. XVI 季氏 The Chi Family Jì Shì · 14 sayings Power decaying from the centre out: three friendships that profit and three that harm, three things the superior man guards against, the nine subjects of his thought.
  17. XVII 陽貨 Yang Ho Yáng Huò · 26 sayings A darker book of a failing age: 'By nature men are nearly alike; by practice they get to be wide apart,' and the Master's wish at last to say nothing, as Heaven says nothing.
  18. XVIII 微子 Wei Tsze Wēi Zǐ · 11 sayings The worthies who withdrew from a disordered world, and the recluses who mock the Master for not joining them — yet 'I cannot herd with birds and beasts.'
  19. XIX 子張 Tsze-chang Zǐ Zhāng · 25 sayings The Master is gone; now the disciples speak. Tsze-hsia, Tsze-chang, Tsze-kung, and Tsang carry the teaching, and defend it against detractors.
  20. XX 堯曰 Yao Said Yáo Yuē · 3 sayings A brief and solemn close: the charge handed down from sage-king to sage-king, and the last counsel — without knowing the decrees of Heaven, the rules of propriety, and the force of words, one cannot be a superior man.
字 · The Vocabulary of Virtue

Fourteen ideas

Legge's English carries a small, recurring set of Chinese terms. Learn these and the whole book opens up. Tap any to see what it means.