Legge's English rests on a small set of Chinese terms that recur on almost every page. They do not map neatly onto single English words — which is exactly why they repay a closer look. Learn these fourteen and the whole book grows clearer.
Legge renders it perfect virtue · benevolence · true virtue
Humaneness — the warmth and fellow-feeling of a fully realised person, shown above all in how one treats others. The supreme virtue of the Analects, which Confucius almost never grants to anyone outright.
Find it in the text → around 27 sayings
Legge renders it rules of propriety · ceremonies · rites
Ritual, ceremony, and the forms of proper conduct — from the rites of court and mourning to everyday courtesy. The outward patterns that, practised sincerely, shape the inner person.
Find it in the text → around 42 sayings
Legge renders it superior man · Chun-tsze
The 'gentleman' or exemplary person — one who pursues virtue, righteousness, and learning for their own sake. Confucius's ideal, set throughout against the 'mean man'.
Find it in the text → around 70 sayings
Legge renders it mean man · small man
The petty, small-minded person — moved by profit, comfort, and partiality rather than by what is right. The foil that defines the superior man by contrast.
Find it in the text → around 17 sayings
Legge renders it filial piety · filial
Devotion to one's parents and ancestors — reverent care in life, proper mourning in death. For Confucius, the root from which all other virtue grows.
Find it in the text → around 14 sayings
Legge renders it learning · to learn
Study and self-cultivation — not the mere hoarding of facts but the lifelong, joyful effort to become better. The Analects opens with it, and returns to it constantly.
Find it in the text → around 30 sayings
Legge renders it the right way · true principles · doctrines
The Way — the right path for a person, a ruler, or an age. At once the moral order of things and the practice that accords with it.
Find it in the text → around 10 sayings
Legge renders it virtue · virtuous
Moral power — the quiet force of a good character, which draws others without compulsion, 'as the north star keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it'. (Legge also renders rén as 'virtue', so read by context.)
Find it in the text → around 98 sayings
Legge renders it righteousness · what is right
Rightness — doing what is fitting and just because it is right, never because it pays. The superior man's measure of every action.
Find it in the text → around 20 sayings
Legge renders it sincerity · faithfulness · truthfulness
Trustworthiness and sincerity — keeping one's word, being reliable in one's dealings. Without it, Confucius says, a man simply cannot get on.
Find it in the text → around 28 sayings
Legge renders it Heaven · the decrees of Heaven
Heaven — the highest power and the source of moral order, neither quite a personal god nor mere nature. It ordains one's lot, and its decrees set the bounds of a life.
Find it in the text → around 25 sayings
Legge renders it wisdom · knowledge
Practical wisdom — knowing people, discerning the right course, and above all holding that you know what you know and do not know what you do not.
Find it in the text → around 21 sayings
Legge renders it the Mean · the Constant Mean
The Mean — the balanced, unwavering centre between excess and deficiency. Confucius calls it a virtue of the highest order, and rare for a long time among the people.
Find it in the text → around 21 sayings
Legge renders it letters · polite arts · accomplishments
Culture and refinement — the inherited arts of poetry, music, history, and manners that polish the self. Balanced against plain substance, it makes the cultivated person.
Find it in the text → around 7 sayings