Confucius And The Ideal Gentleman

5 Pages 1227 Words

The Ideal Gentleman
When someone thinks about Confucius, the first thing that comes to mind is the Confucius says jokes. Though Confucius sayings where all but a joke. In his wise sayings, Confucius tried to bring people to a virtuous way of life and respect for the teaching of wise men of older generations. Some of Confucius’s sayings were gathered and put into a book called The Analects. In The Analects, Confucius describes the ideal person or what is otherwise known as the perfect gentleman. His description critiques what it takes to become the perfect gentleman. Confucius describes the perfect gentlemen of being moral, but what does he really mean by moral. Confucius’s behavior also in many ways described the perfect gentleman.
Confucius spoke much about the perfect gentleman. In his preaching, Confucius described how to become a perfect gentleman. He believed that by spending time finding errors in others, a person would be able to find errors within himself. “The Master said, it is not the failure of others to appreciate your abilities that should trouble you, but rather your failure to appreciate theirs.” (Lau, 62) By finding errors in one’s self a person then would be able to correct them and be one step closer to becoming the ideal gentleman. Confucius believed that when someone spent a lot of time with friends and family that they should just listen to them talk. Just by listening to them talk one would be able to pick up traits on how to become an ideal gentleman. “The Master said, ‘when you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.” (Lau, 74) A person should also talk in order to get to know other people better, and by talking he can figure out what he knows and doesn’t know about being the ideal gentleman. Confucius also thought that it was important to criticize oth...