Confucius (551–479 BCE) was a Chinese philosopher and politician. His principles of filial piety and the “Golden Rule” have had profound cultural and political impact throughout history, spreading from China around the world.
CLEAR ALL
Stay a verb—don’t become a noun.
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Life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will.
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Excessive use of external motivation can slow and even stop your journey to mastery.
How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change.
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I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
'Knock and it shall be opened.’ But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac?
Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. . . . It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.
Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.