Confucius Quotes

How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the whole day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day.

Try to be a better person everyday.

Whoever will cultivate their own mind will find full employment. Every virtue does not only require great care in the planting, but as much daily solicitude in cherishing as exotic fruits and flowers; the vices and passions (which I am afraid are the natural product of the soil) demand perpetual weeding. Add to this the search after knowledge. . . and the longest life is too short.

It is always more difficult to fight one's own failings than the power of an adversary.

In the matter of learning, the difference between the earnest and the careless student stands out clearly. The same holds true in the mastering of passion and the weaknesses to which our nature is subject, as in the acquiring of virtue.

I try to be a good person. I know what my downfalls are, so that's a good thing.

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

I couldn't make sense of things. But then I began the process of civilising myself and trying to become a decent human being. I'm still working on it.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

It is the duty and high privilege of every human being to endeavor to improve himself. Effort at self-improvement is the definition sometimes given for religion. It may relate to our actions or to our convictions. In our actions we should aim at goodness; in our convictions, at truth.

Man should be ever better than he seems.

Whether it's making a film or raising my children, personally I'm striving to do the right things and to learn.

One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.

I know I haven't always done things the right way. I'm just trying to reflect on how to make myself better, how to become a better man, a better father, a better person, a better artist.

You're always concerned for your character. You should be.

I'm trying figuring out how to be the best person I can be. But it's been a process of trial and error.

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

Study the best and highest things that are; but of yourself humble thoughts retain.

My future's about trying to be a better man.

An individual step in character training is to put responsibility on the individual.

Who has a harder fight than he who is striving to overcome himself.

It does us no harm to look over our past shortcomings and plan to improve our characters and actions in the coming year

What, pray, does it profit a man to teach others, and to be prating always about virtue, in high-sounding words, if he fails to give heed to his own instructions?

It's certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.