Confucius Quotes

There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth ... lust. When he is strong ... quarrelsomeness. When he is old ... covetousness.

Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly ruling; prudence is love making wise distinction between what hinders and what helps itself.

There are three things to beware of through life: when a man is young, let him beware of his appetites; when he is middle-aged, of his passions; and when old, of covetousness, especially.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

In order to grow old, you have to experience everything, but in moderation.

Virtue does not consist in the absence of the passions, but in the control of them.

He cannot be vertuous that is not rigorous.

Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.

To refrain from evil and from strong drink and to be always, steadfast in virtue; this is the good luck.

About the time we get old enough to be as wicked as we want to be, we don't want to be so very wicked after all.

Silence is the cornerstone of character.

Do you wish the world were better? Let me tell you what to do: Set a watch upon your actions, Keep them always straight and true.

The good renounce everything. The pure don't babble about sensual desires. Whether touched by pleasure or pain, the wise show no change of temper.

It would be a good thing if young people were wise and old people were strong, but God has arranged things better.

The pride of youth is in strength and beauty, the pride of old age is in discretion.

Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature.

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

I've been deeply influenced by Aristotle's idea that virtue is a habit, something you practice and get better at, rather than something that comes naturally. 'The control of the appetites by right reason,' is how he defined it.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

Acting engenders and harbours qualities that are best left way behind in adolescence.

It is well to think well; it is divine to act well.

The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.

It's not the same thing to make a work - a film, a book, a play - about youth as it is to make one about old age.