Confucius Quotes

The weakest man is the one who is able to correct his moral defects, but doesn't take action.

I will be fond of keeping still, and the people will of themselves become correct.

The walls of that grand edifice called a good character have to be worked at during life.

Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.

I'm not perfect in my walk but I want to do the right thing.

The great hope of society is in individual character.

The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.

Persevere in virtue and diligence.

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

Gladly we desire to make other men perfect, but we will not amend our own fault.

Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women.

It is better to destroy one's own errors than those of others.

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?

My power for good, whatever it may, would be gone if I didn’t try to live up to the doctrines I have tried to preach.

I try to be a good person - I don't always succeed, but that's what I'm shooting for.

Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that 'a quiet conscience makes one strong!'

Listen to your conscience regarding something that you simply know you should do, then start small on it - make a promise and keep it. Then move forward and make a little larger promise and keep it. Eventually you'll discover that your sense of honor will become greater than your moods, and that will give you a level of confidence and excitement that you can move to other areas where you feel you need to make improvements or give service.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat; Of habits devil, is angel yet in this.

If you will express the requisite purity of character in action, you cannot do it better than through the spinning wheel.

It is easier to enrich ourselves with a thousand virtues, than to correct ourselves of a single fault.

I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier.

Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day. They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives.

I require myself not to be equal to the best, but to be better then the bad.

Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.