“Such being its nature, without any display, it becomes manifested; without any movement, it produces changes; and without any effort, it accomplishes its ends.”

—  Confucius

The Analects, The Doctrine of the Mean
Context: To entire sincerity there belongs ceaselessness. Not ceasing, it continues long. Continuing long, it evidences itself. Evidencing itself, it reaches far. Reaching far, it becomes large and substantial. Large and substantial, it becomes high and brilliant. Large and substantial; this is how it contains all things. High and brilliant; this is how it overspreads all things. Reaching far and continuing long; this is how it perfects all things. So large and substantial, the individual possessing it is the co-equal of Earth. So high and brilliant, it makes him the co-equal of Heaven. So far-reaching and long-continuing, it makes him infinite. Such being its nature, without any display, it becomes manifested; without any movement, it produces changes; and without any effort, it accomplishes its ends.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Such being its nature, without any display, it becomes manifested; without any movement, it produces changes; and witho…" by Confucius?
Confucius photo
Confucius 269
Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher -551–-479 BC

Related quotes

Zisi photo

“Such being the nature of absolute truth, it manifests itself without being seen; it produces effects without motion; it accomplishes its ends without action.”

Zisi (-481–-402 BC) Chinese philosopher

Source: The Doctrine of the Mean, p. 125

“A mass culture is a culture which can be appropriated by the meanest capacities without any intellectual or moral effort whatsoever. … Liberal education is the counterpoison to mass culture, to the corroding effects of mass culture, to its inherent tendency to produce nothing but “specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart.””

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

“What is liberal education,” p. 5 [The phrase “specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart.” is from Max Weber]
Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968)

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“Compassion being action without motive, without self-interest, without any sense of fear, without any sense of pleasure.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

6th Public Talk, Saanen (28 July 1970) 'The Mechanical Activity of Thought" http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/the-impossible-question/1970-07-28-jiddu-krishnamurti-the-impossible-question-the-mechanical-activity-of-thought in The Impossible Question (1972) http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=9&chid=57009, Part I, Ch. 6], p. 63 J.Krishnamurti Online, Serial No. 330
1970s
Context: What does it mean to be compassionate? Not merely verbally, but actually to be compassionate? Is compassion a matter of habit, of thought, a matter of the mechanical repetition of being kind, polite, gentle, tender? Can the mind which is caught in the activity of thought with its conditioning, its mechanical repetition, be compassionate at all? It can talk about it, it can encourage social reform, be kind to the poor heathen and so on; but is that compassion? When thought dictates, when thought is active, can there be any place for compassion? Compassion being action without motive, without self-interest, without any sense of fear, without any sense of pleasure.

Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Marcus Aurelius photo

“Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change?”

VII, 18
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII

Marshall McLuhan photo

“People in new environments always produce the new preceptual modality without any difficulty or awareness of change. It is later that the psychic and social realignments baffle societies.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

ARTnews annual, Volume 31, Art Foundation, 1966, p. 56
1960s

Diogenes Laërtius photo

“One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. Moreover, that in that does happiness consist.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Zeno, 53.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 7: The Stoics

Related topics