The Analects
by Confucius
Sayings and conversations of Confucius collected by his students: ritual, filial duty, the gentleman (junzi), learning, governing by example. It is fragmentary and repetitive, and it is the foundation of the oldest continuous tradition of thinking about character and leadership.
Read it if…
you want a non-Western foundation for character and leadership.
Skip it if…
you need narrative; it is fragments.
Three things you will actually use
- Do not do to others what you would not want done to you.
- Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.
- The gentleman is calm and at ease; the small man is fretful.
Do this first
Read Book 1 and Book 2 with a good translation's notes, then dip at random.
Our verdict
The oldest leadership tradition.
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