The Analects
論語
EditionTranslated from the original Classical Chinese (received text, Zhu Xi’s division into 499 passages, with the Chinese text)
The sayings of Confucius and his disciples in 499 short passages: learning, ritual, humaneness, and how to govern and how to live.
Also in the library: the complete Korean translation.
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DRM-free files. Translation CC BY-NC 4.0; the original work is in the public domain.
About the book
Confucius was born in the small state of Lu in 551 BC, into a family of low rank. He held office only briefly and spent years traveling from court to court in search of a ruler who would use him, but he is remembered as a teacher. After his death his disciples and their followers gathered his sayings and the record of his conduct into the Analects, which became the most widely read and memorized book in East Asia for more than two thousand years.
Its 499 passages are mostly a few lines long. There are sayings on learning and friendship, on filial piety and ritual, on government and character, and there are exchanges with disciples such as Zilu, Zigong, and Yan Hui. Confucius instructs and rebukes, jokes, weeps for a disciple who died young, and hears out the recluses who mock him, without leaving his road.
This complete English translation is made directly from the Classical Chinese of the received text, divided as in Zhu Xi’s edition. Each passage prints the Chinese first, one clause to a line, with the English line for line beneath it. The key terms keep one rendering throughout, and 184 short notes identify people and old customs and mark the places where the commentators divide.
Highlights
- Do not worry that others do not know you; worry that you do not know others.
- What you do not want for yourself, do not impose on others.
- Only when the year turns cold do we know that the pine and the cypress are the last to fade.
Contents
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Colophon
Translated from the original Classical Chinese (received text, Zhu Xi’s division into 499 passages, with the Chinese text). Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.Full colophon
The Analects
Original title · 論語 Lunyu
Author · The sayings and doings of Confucius (Kongzi, 551–479 BC), compiled by his disciples and their followers
Translator · Ether Library
Composition · Compiled after Confucius’s death, from the fifth century BC through the Warring States period; the twenty-book text was settled under the Han dynasty. The division into 499 passages follows Zhu Xi’s Lunyu jizhu (1190).
Source text · A public-domain digital transcription of the received twenty-book text. Translated directly from the Classical Chinese. James Legge’s English translation, Confucian Analects (The Chinese Classics, vol. 1, 1861; revised 1893), was consulted for meaning only.
Extent · Complete and unabridged · 20 books · 499 passages · 15,914 characters of Chinese (punctuation excluded), printed in full in 1,504 lines, each with its English line · 184 short translator’s notes
Corrections · Characters miswritten or lost in the transcription are corrected in the Chinese, among them 12.1 人 for 仁 and 15.23 恕 for 怒. Readings on which the commentators divide are noted.
Copyright · The original work dates from before the common era and is in the public domain everywhere. The transcription adds no rights, and Legge’s translation is in the public domain.
This translation · Translated from the Classical Chinese by Ether Library. The English text is © Ether Library and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0): you may copy and share it for noncommercial purposes, with attribution.
Edition · English edition 1.0 · November 2026
Typography · Set in Lora (SIL Open Font License 1.1); the Chinese in Noto Serif CJK (SIL Open Font License 1.1). Cover painting and design by Ether Library.
Original in the public domain · English translation CC BY-NC 4.0
Ether Library · No. 0028