James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Confucius
A fool resents good counsel, but a wise man lays it to heart.
By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is the noblest; second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.
Eat at your own table as you would eat at the table of the king.
Faithfulness and sincerity are the highest things.
For one word a man is often deemed wise, and for one word he is often deemed foolish.
Gravity is only the bark of wisdom, but it preserves it.
He who knows right principles is not equal to him who loves them.
He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.
How can a man be concealed? How can a man be concealed?
Humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues.
Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star.
Reckon no vice so small that you may commit it, and no virtue so small that you may overlook it.
Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
Silence is a friend that will never betray.
Sincerity is the way to heaven. To think how to be sincere is the way of man.
Study the past if you would divine the future.
The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.
The faults of the superior man are like the eclipses of the sun and moon. He has his faults, and all men see them; he changes, and all men look up to him.
The heart of a wise man should resemble a mirror, which reflects every object without being sullied by any.
The way of the superior man is threefold—virtuous, he is free from anxieties; wise, he is free from perplexities; bold, he is free from fear.
They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.
To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.
We are not to be astonished that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue than fools in their passage to vice; since passion drags us alone, while wisdom only points out the way.
We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.
We should hold the immutable mean that lies between insensibility and anguish; our attempts should be, not to extinguish nature, but to repress it; not to stand unmoved at distress, but endeavour to turn every disaster to our own advantage.
We take greater pains to persuade others that we are happy than in endeavouring to think so ourselves.
When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it: this is knowledge.