What is the main content of The Analects of Confucius?

The Analects of Confucius is a record of the words of Confucius and his disciples, edited by a disciple of Confucius and his disciples, and presumably written between the end of the Spring and Autumn period and the beginning of the Warring States period.

From the physical point of view, the Analects of Confucius is not a strict systematic work, but only a book of Confucius and the disciples of Confucius' daily words and deeds of the collection, which has a simple and concise, meaningful and eternal aphorisms and vivid image of the small stories, so its style seems more down-to-earth, lively, easy to understand and accept. The book *** 20, each divided into a number of chapters, each independent. The book is simple and profound, implicit and condensed, from which Confucius' profound knowledge and rich life experience can be seen. At the same time, it also conveys the characters' attitudes, and in some chapters, it vividly reflects the characters' character traits. Many of these pithy remarks became maxims and idioms passed down from generation to generation, and had a great influence on later literary language. The Analects of Confucius, which focuses on Confucius' thoughts on politics, ethics, philosophy and education, is one of the most important classical works of Confucianism. The ideological concepts of human attitudes expressed in it have not only left an extremely wide and profound influence in the history of Chinese culture and thought; even today, it still attracts extensive attention and intensive study by Chinese and world cultural figures.

The ideological content of the Analects mainly includes the following aspects:

I. The Way of Ruling the Country. For example, it is said in the Analects of Confucius - Learning and Learning that "the way to a country of a thousand rides is to honor the work and trust, to save the use and love the people, and to keep the people in a timely manner." This means that those who govern should be respectful and trustworthy, economize on usage and love the people, and make reasonable use of manpower during farming hours so as not to delay the farming time. Another example is: "If the way is governed by politics, and the way is characterized by punishment, the people will be exempted from shame; if the way is governed by virtue, and the way is characterized by propriety, the people will be ashamed of themselves." This refers to the fact that if the law is used to force the people to commit crimes, although it can avoid them to a certain extent, it is better to treat the symptoms rather than the root cause than to use moral education to make the people have a sense of shame and thus consciously abide by social morality. Confucius believed that the main contents of moral education were benevolence and propriety, so he advocated "to govern with virtue". Since the Han Dynasty, Confucius' thought has been supplemented and modified by Confucian thinkers of all generations, and has become more systematic, and has been dominant in our country's long-term feudal society. Successive feudal rulers have used Confucius to maintain their rule, honoring him as the supreme sage.

Two, cultural education. Confucius in the Analects of Confucius outlines the important role of culture: "The barbarians have a king, not as bad as the death of the Xia." The meaning of this phrase is that if there is no cultural basis for the establishment of the nation, even if it had once flourished, after the demise of the foundation is not available for it to rise again, rather than the temporary absence of the country and the culture of the nation, there is still an opportunity to rise again. It is also said that "there is no such thing as teaching" and "one should never be tired of learning, and one should never be tired of teaching". This points out that education should be popularized, and teachers should enrich themselves and teach students tirelessly with love. Confucius attaches great importance to the political and educational role of literature, such as "Poetry can rise, can be viewed, can be group, can be complained about, near the father, far to serve the king, more knowledge of birds and animals, grass and trees in the name of" ("Yangguo"). This can be regarded as China's earliest literary criticism, it has a great influence on the development of literature, especially poetry, and literary criticism.

Third, learning attitude and method. Confucius said, "To know is to know, not to know is not to know, is to know." This means that learning should be down-to-earth, not a little bit of false, or even if the world can not hide their own. It also says: "Those who know are not as good as those who are good, and those who are good are not as good as those who are happy." This points out the important role of interest in learning. Confucius also said, "To learn without thinking is confusing, and to think without learning is perilous." This points out the importance of learning and thinking.

Four, personal cultivation. Confucius said: "do not suffer from no position, suffering so stand. Do not suffer from mo own knowledge, seek can be known." This refers to should be more perfect themselves, such as if not known to others, we must find more in their own body to find the reason, rather than complaining about others. It is also said, "To pass and not to change is to pass!" This is to say that it does not matter if a person has faults, as long as he can change his faults, if he has faults and refuses to change them, this is a really big fault.

The above four points are but one of the spots in the Analects of Confucius, and through them we can see the flashpoints of Confucius' thought and appreciate his great wisdom.

During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Analects of Confucius was listed as one of the seven classics. Zhu Xi of the Southern Song Dynasty combined it with the University, the Meanwhile, and Mencius into the Four Books. Zhu annotated the Four Books, which was later designated as an official book by successive dynasties and was the standard text for imperial examinations, so it was extremely widely circulated and had the greatest influence. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was stipulated that in the imperial examinations, the topics of the eight-legged essays had to be selected from the Four Books and had to "speak on behalf of the sages". In this way, the readers at that time should regard the Analects of Confucius as a "sacred text" and memorize it thoroughly.

Confucius' thought had a great influence on the philosophy, literature, art, education, and history of feudal China, and as an outstanding representative of traditional Chinese culture, this influence spread to East Asia and even the whole world.