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The Analects · A small reading room

What it was taught.The burns are the homework.

仁

Ren

Humaneness

The central virtue. Kindness as the grain of a good life and a good society — not a mood, a practice. Treat the other person as a person.

礼

Li

Ritual

The forms that make respect visible. Confucius did not think ritual was decoration. He thought it was how a private feeling becomes a public good.

孝

Xiao

Filial regard

Family is the first school of virtue. You learn to be a person at home before you learn to be a citizen.

君子

Junzi

The exemplary person

Not a vessel. Not a specialist. Slow to speak, prompt to act, ashamed of a gap between the two.

正名

Zhengming

Rectification of names

Call things what they are, or government fails. Names are contracts with reality.

德

De

Virtue as power

Leaders govern by moral example rather than force. Edicts keep people out of trouble; virtue and ritual give them shame, and they become good.