Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.
Confucius (551–479 BC) was a Chinese teacher and civil servant whose teachings on duty, family and government shaped Chinese thought for more than two thousand years. He wrote no book himself; the Analects are a collection of his sayings compiled by his students after his death.
About this theme: Happiness
Few subjects have been written about so much with so little agreement. For Aristotle happiness was not a feeling but a way of living — eudaimonia, visible only when a life is viewed whole. For the Epicureans it was the absence of disturbance. For the Stoics it was a consequence of virtue and never a target. None of these is the same as being in a good mood, yet that substitution is the one most often made.
More by Confucius
- It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
- Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
- The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
- Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
- Study the past if you would define the future.
More on Happiness
- The earth laughs in flowers.— Ralph Waldo Emerson
- True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.— Seneca
- He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.— Lao Tzu
- Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.— Epictetus
- He is richest who is content with the least.— Socrates