“The way of the superior man may be compared to what takes place in traveling, when to go to a distance we must first traverse the space that is near, and in ascending a height, when we must begin from the lower ground.”

—  Confucius

Source: The Doctrine of the Mean

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 "The way of the superior man may be compared to what takes place in traveling, when to go to a distance we must first tr…" by Confucius?
Confucius photo
Confucius 269
Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher -551–-479 BC

Related quotes

Yi Hwang photo
Johannes Tauler photo
Arthur Keith photo
James Branch Cabell photo

“People must have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go out of it we must take what we find. That is all.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

Niafer, in Book Ten : At Manuel's Tomb, Ch. LXIX : Economics of Jurgen
The Silver Stallion (1926)

John Steinbeck photo
Peter Singer photo

“Beginning to reason is like stepping onto an escalator that leads upward and out of sight. Once we take the first step, the distance to be traveled is independent of our will and we cannot know in advance where we shall end.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 4, Reason, p. 88

Robert Grosseteste photo
Linus Pauling photo

“We must not have a Nuclear war. We must begin to solve international disputes by the application of man's power of reason in a way that is worthy of the dignity of man.”

Linus Pauling (1901–1994) American scientist

Debating Edward Teller, in The Nuclear Bomb Tests...Is Fallout Overrated? : Fallout and Disarmament KQED-TV, San Francisco http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/peace/papers/1958p2.1.html (20 February 1958).
1940s-1960s
Context: We must not have a Nuclear war. We must begin to solve international disputes by the application of man's power of reason in a way that is worthy of the dignity of man. We must solve them by arbitration, negotiation, and the development of international law, the making of international agreements that will do justice to all nations and to all peoples and will benefit all nations and to all people. Now is the time to start.

G. Madhavan Nair photo

“Twenty years from now, when space travel is likely to become mundane like airline travel today, we don't want to be buying travel tickets on other people's space vehicles.”

G. Madhavan Nair (1943) Indian aerospace engineer

Quoted in Pallava Bagla, "India's growing strides in space," http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7374714.stm, BBC News (2008-04-30).

James Branch Cabell photo

“You must permit that I begin it in my own way, with what may to you at first seem dream-stuff.”

"Richard Fentnor Harroby" in Ch. 1 : Pallation of the Gambit
The Cream of the Jest (1917)
Context: You must permit that I begin it in my own way, with what may to you at first seem dream-stuff. For I commence at Storisende, in the world's youth, when the fourth Count Emmerick reigned in Poictesme, having not yet blundered into the disfavor of his papal cousin Adrian VII.... With such roundabout gambits alone can some of us approach — as one fancy begets another, if you will — to proud assurance that life is not blind and aimless business; not all a hopeless waste and confusion; and that we ourselves may (by and by) be strong and excellent and wise.

Related topics