f modern societies and have same roots as they did in the times of Confucius. If to think we can state that the decline of moral values, the growth of crime rate and a big gap between rich and poor classes of the society we face now sound very alike with the problems of the ancient China. History repeats itself. This simple truth was discovered by Confucius many centuries ago. “Study the past and you would define the future.” – states he in his book. (Confucius, The Confucian Analects, p.18). And he followed his own advice. He studied a lot of great leaders of the past and a lot of successful rIt’s hard to overvalue the influence of the Confucianism to the development of Chinese culture, politics arts and history. Scientists still doubt and can’t define the exact meaning of the teaching. Some place it to religion; others place it to moral ethics, third to political science. There are others who try to follow it without vain reflections and they state it works for them. I think all of them are right in their own way as the Confucian teaching is a harmonious mixture of ethics, esthetics, politics, religion and humanism.

Kung-fu-tsu (we know him under his Westernized name – Confucius) was born in 551 B.C. into a middle class family. From the very childhood he was devoted to learning and fond of many subjects. He mastered six arts – ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy and arithmetic – the basic set for the noble youth of those times. Even being very young he was interested in public service. When grown up, Confucius went traveling state by state to study the way of life and customs of people of the different provinces.

He was born in difficult for his country times. China of the Eastern Zhou dynasty (that is the time he lived) was split into a number of small states which were at war with each other. These wars weakened the country, made a lot of harm to its people and devastated its lands. This was a time of moral chaos when moral values were rejected, crime and disobeying flourished and ruined the society from inside. The difference between poor and rich class was overwhelming and lead to a great contradictory in the society. There was a great need in a social theory which would reunite the country and Chinese nation and make it powerful and mighty union. A lot of theories were proposed at those times but Confucius’ one turned to be the most successful one and won a great supremacy during the ruling of the Han dynasty.

During his life Confucius accomplished several books. He didn’t write them himself and they were written by his successors from his words. “The Confucius Analects” is the most famous of them. It’s a book of quotes and sayings of the master on the social, ethical and moral topics.

The life of China during the Zhou dynasty can seem something distanced and uninteresting to the modern people but if to make a deep survey of the situation, we will see that problems people faced then are repeated in the most of modern societies and have same roots as they did in the times of Confucius. If to think we can state that the decline of moral values, the growth of crime rate and a big gap between rich and poor classes of the society we face now sound very alike with the problems of the ancient China. History repeats itself. This simple truth was discovered by Confucius many centuries ago. “Study the past and you would define the future.” – states he in his book. (Confucius, The Confucian Analects, p.18). And he followed his own advice. He studied a lot of great leaders of the past and a lot of successful re

cius) was born in 551 B.C. into a middle class family. From the very childhood he was devoted to learning and fond of many subjects. He mastered six arts – ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy and arithmetic – the basic set for the noble youth of those times. Even being very young he was interested in public service. When grown up, Confucius went traveling state by state to study the way of life and customs of people of the different provinces.

He was born in difficult for his country times. China of the Eastern Zhou dynasty (that is the time he lived) was split into a number of small states which were at war with each other. These wars weakened the country, made a lot of harm to its people and devastated its lands. This was a time of moral chaos when moral values were rejected, crime and disobeying flourished and ruined the society from inside. The difference between poor and rich class was overwhelming and lead to a great contradictory in the society. There was a great need in a social theory which would reunite the country and Chinese nation and make it powerful and mighty union. A lot of theories were proposed at those times but Confucius’ one turned to be the most successful one and won a great supremacy during the ruling of the Han dynasty.

During his life Confucius accomplished several books. He didn’t write them himself and they were written by his successors from his words. “The Confucius Analects” is the most famous of them. It’s a book of quotes and sayings of the master on the social, ethical and moral topics.

The life of China during the Zhou dynasty can seem something distanced and uninteresting to the modern people but if to make a deep survey of the situation, we will see that problems people faced then are repeated in the most of modern societies and have same roots as they did in the times of Confucius. If to think we can state that the decline of moral values, the growth of crime rate and a big gap between rich and poor classes of the society we face now sound very alike with the problems of the ancient China. History repeats itself. This simple truth was discovered by Confucius many centuries ago. “Study the past and you would define the future.” – states he in his book. (Confucius, The Confucian Analects, p.18). And he followed his own advice. He studied a lot of great leaders of the past and a lot of successful r

of small states which were at war with each other. These wars weakened the country, made a lot of harm to its people and devastated its lands. This was a time of moral chaos when moral values were rejected, crime and disobeying flourished and ruined the society from inside. The difference between poor and rich class was overwhelming and lead to a great contradictory in the society. There was a great need in a social theory which would reunite the country and Chinese nation and make it powerful and mighty union. A lot of theories were proposed at those times but Confucius’ one turned to be the most successful one and won a great supremacy during the ruling of the Han dynasty.

During his life Confucius accomplished several books. He didn’t write them himself and they were written by his successors from his words. “The Confucius Analects” is the most famous of them. It’s a book of quotes and sayings of the master on the social, ethical and moral topics.

The life of China during the Zhou dynasty can seem something distanced and uninteresting to the modern people but if to make a deep survey of the situation, we will see that problems people faced then are repeated in the most of modern societies and have same roots as they did in the times of Confucius. If to think we can state that the decline of moral values, the growth of crime rate and a big gap between rich and poor classes of the society we face now sound very alike with the problems of the ancient China. History repeats itself. This simple truth was discovered by Confucius many centuries ago. “Study the past and you would define the future.” – states he in his book. (Confucius, The Confucian Analects, p.18). And he followed his own advice. He studied a lot of great leaders of the past and a lot of successful r

st successful one and won a great supremacy during the ruling of the Han dynasty.

During his life Confucius accomplished several books. He didn’t write them himself and they were written by his successors from his words. “The Confucius Analects” is the most famous of them. It’s a book of quotes and sayings of the master on the social, ethical and moral topics.

The life of China during the Zhou dynasty can seem something distanced and uninteresting to the modern people but if to make a deep survey of the situation, we will see that problems people faced then are repeated in the most of modern societies and have same roots as they did in the times of Confucius. If to think we can state that the decline of moral values, the growth of crime rate and a big gap between rich and poor classes of the society we face now sound very alike with the problems of the ancient China. History repeats itself. This simple truth was discovered by Confucius many centuries ago. “Study the past and you would define the future.” – states he in his book. (Confucius, The Confucian Analects, p.18). And he followed his own advice. He studied a lot of great leaders of the past and a lot of successful r

f modern societies and have same roots as they did in the times of Confucius. If to think we can state that the decline of moral values, the growth of crime rate and a big gap between rich and poor classes of the society we face now sound very alike with the problems of the ancient China. History repeats itself. This simple truth was discovered by Confucius many centuries ago. “Study the past and you would define the future.” – states he in his book. (Confucius, The Confucian Analects, p.18). And he followed his own advice. He studied a lot of great leaders of the past and a lot of successful reigning systems before he produced the one of his own. Confucius believed that the divine order is reflected in the order human beings present on the earth. He believed that our ancestors understood this order better than we did as they didn’t lose the connection with the ultimate source and understood the union of the earth and heaven better than his contemporaries.

He set ancient people as an example and the past model or reigning considered being the best one.

He specialized not only in the orderly arrangement of society and relationship between people but in self-perfection and self-development, humanism and moral rectitude as the ultimate goals of every person. The concepts of jen and li are often considered to be the main concepts of Confucianism. Each of these concepts has a lot of shades of meaning and covers almost all the teaching. The concept of jen includes goodness, benevolence, humanity and kindness. These are the qualities of the personality which define the level of its development and differentiate it from non-human beings. For Confucius these qualities make the basis of moral rectitude. The more developed the qualities mentioned above are, the more developed the personality is according to the teaching of Confucius. If put in the basis of human relationship, these qualities provide genuine and open communication and both sides get profit of it. Humanity, kindness, goodness, etc. do not depend of the race or social status and can be born or developed during the lifetime. Since jen is a sense of humanity, developed towards others it increases the self-esteem of the individual himself. Confucius can not imagine right attitude to others without the right attitude to yourself. “Respect yourself and others will respect you.” (Confucius, The Confucian Analects, p.73) addresses he his followers to underline one more time the importance of right self-esteem. Some scientists state that “The Golden Rule” of human interaction mentioned in many scripts and by many authors was first formulated by Confucius in his teaching. It sounds like “Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you.”(Confucius, The Confucian Analects, p. 45). Confucius states that following this rule would stop wars and conflicts and bring harmony and peace to the life of the country in general and its citizens in particular.

Another important component of t