The Confucian analects

Kong Qiu, known as Confucius (551–479 BC), was born in the state of Lu, in today's Shandong, into a family of modest means. He held minor official posts, then spent some fourteen years travelling from state to state looking for a ruler who would put his ideas of good government into practice, without success.

He devoted himself to teaching, and tradition says he had three thousand students. His conversations, recorded by his disciples in The Analects, put humaneness, learning, family duty and proper conduct at the centre of life, and shaped Chinese civilisation for more than two thousand years.