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Quote by Confucius

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Confucius
Confucius

Confucius, also known as Kong Qiu or Zhongni, was a great philosopher, educator, and politician during the Spring and Autumn period of ancient China. He advocated for benevolence, rule of propriety, and the doctrine of the mean, and his thoughts have had a profound impact on Chinese and world culture. more

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“Goodness preaches constantly, wants to change humanity, to work miracles from one day to the next, makes a show of its substance, wants to question essentials, but in fact is most often just hollow, lacking in substance, essence itself. A good word which has not yet been put into practice holds within itself every virgin possibility and is more than a good deed, the outcome of which is dubious, its effect arguable. In general words are always more than deeds.”

Goodness
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“You can dam and direct the water, and you can force it to remain on the top of a mountain without flowing down. But is this what water's nature really is? It is what you have done to it that makes it so. Humans can also be made to be not good in the same way. " - Mencius”

LifeGoodnessThe PathMenciusChines PhilosophyGoodness Of Humankind
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“..But for anything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it. .. There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it - at the very heart of it - it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it is supposed to be if love is not at the core.”

LoveGoodness
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“Wanting to help was not enough. To rescue a Jew in these conditions, where no structure supported the effort and where the penalty was death, required something stronger than character, something greater than a worldview. Generous people took humane decisions, yet still failed. Probably most men and women of goodwill who were able to take the initial risk failed after a month, a week, a day. It was an era where to be good meant not only the avoidance of evil but a total determination to act on behalf of a stranger, on a planet where hell, not heaven, was the reward for goodness.”

GoodnessDeterminationHumanismHumaneHumane Treatment Of Others
Book:Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning
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