Analects of Confucius Book 4: resources

2 min readJan 15, 2022

Book 4 provides some interesting insights into Confucius’s thinking about goodness — an ambiguous concept that even he was unable (or perhaps unwilling) to clearly define. In addition to plenty of advice on learning and the practice of filial devotion, the book also features for the first time in the Analects examples of the sage’s condemnation of the profit motive — which, according to some commentators at least, not held back China’s economic development for two thousand years but also made the nation ill-prepared to fight off the invasions of the Western imperialist powers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Please click on the links below for the complete analysis.

Analects of Confucius Book 4: translation
Analects of Confucius Book 4: overview
Analects of Confucius Book 4: by numbers
Analects of Confucius Book 4: Confucius on leadership qualities
Analects of Confucius Book 4: Confucius’s approach to learning
Analects of Confucius Book 4: the benefits of goodness
Analects of Confucius Book 4: virtue never stands alone
Analects of Confucius Book 4: Confucius on filial devotion
Analects of Confucius Book 4: Confucius on profit

Here is a list of articles I have written about each chapter in the book. Again, click on the links to learn more!

Analects of Confucius Book 4: resources

Written by Richard Brown