Customer Reviews

The wisdom of Confucius

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I found this book readable and surprisingly useful. True, the Analects are not complete but have been excerpted. The book cannot present more than a sampling of Confucius' writings for obvious limitations of space. Merits of the book include its readability, with a long, discursive essay and some translations provided by the celebrated scholar Lin Yutang. The book also contains a famous Chinese biography of Confucius, plus a few selections from the writings of Confucius's most influencial disciples-- some of these contemporary with Confucius and some from later times.

I could not help noticing prior reviews that deal harshly with the book. Some of the criticism will not be meaningful to the nonscholarly reader, who, for example, would not be offended that the "original numbering" of the Analects has been abandoned.

Selection of the writings has been most judicious. For example, the book contains "On the Great Learning," and "On Education." To obtain all these well-chosen sample writings of Confucius in individual editions rather than an anthology such as this would require an entire shelf of books.

This readable, clean edition will be excellent for the thoughtful person who wants to explore across the breadth of Confucius's thought. And despite biting criticism in the other reviews, I found Professor Lin's discussions of Confucius's life, thought, and cultural impact to be most helpful.

The book is also a handsome little volume, and with a quality binding. One is proud to place it in one's library.

This is a very good book on the "wisdom" of Confucius, but not the word-by-word translation of the original Analects of Confucius. Some readers maybe misunderstood in the first place when they read this book. Chinese philosophy is sometimes hard to be really understood at first because it's deep and profound. Wisdom is not a practical skill that people can learn or master quickly, but something can only be gradually experienced and understood over time. Dr. Lin Yutang himself was a very wise man. Through his interpretation, this book really shows the wisdom of the greatest Chinese teacher Confucius.

I'm a beginner to the study of Confucianism with a good deal of amateur knowledge of religion and philosophy, and I found this book highly informative and readable -- it can certainly hold its own with some more recent translations I've read. The most correct and useful numbering and organization of the passages in Confucian originals seems to be a matter of much debate, this is as good as any other I've seen.

I purchased this book because I became interested in Chinese philosophy, particularly Taoism. This book is strangely organized and written. I'm not sure if it is a function of the translation, grammer, or my own intellect that makes this book hard to follow. The book contains various sayings that Confucius or his students have said, but each is presented in such a way as to be disconnected from the previous sentence. Very strange. I'm used to reading a lot of Zen which can be obtuse at times, but this book was way beyond me.

A nice copy of an out of print title. It is in very good condition. The text is inciteful and the illustrations are helpful in expressing the points of the text.

This book contains short chapters on different philosophies by Confucius. Each chapter discusses a different topic. Here is one example; On Marriage; With the ancients in their practice of government, the love of man was a great point. In their regulation of the love of man, the rules of ceremony were a great plan. In the regulation of those rules, reverence was a great point. For the extreme manifestation of reference, we find the best illustration in the great right of marriage.

A disastrous work that perpetuates misinformation bout Confucius' life, strips the numbering off the Analects, loses half of them and throws the rest into a jumbled order presumably meant to read as a flowing narrative. Includes contemporary language, but many terms and phrases are badly chosen and clash with the overall tone of the work. Some passages are badly distorted; most of them read like dubbed dialogue in a martial-arts movie. Not recommended for anyone or anything, except as an example of what not to do. Wade-Giles romanization.

I bought this book thinking I'd get a huge list of all of the wisdom of Confucius. But that was the least of what I got. I'm sure there is some wisdome in this book somewhere but the conversation and wording is terrible. It took me 10 minutes read a page, and read again, because I truly had no idea what was going on. Every once in a while, you will come across a straightforward statement that really means something. I'm thinking that this translation does a direct translation to English and it just doesn't fit together well.

I think it may be my own intelligence that keeps me from following the wording of this book. Nothing sticks out as great wisdom to me. There is a section that has poems, which are really good, but they don't show me great wisdom. I believe that this book is only for advanced readers.