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One of the key contrasts between the various classical Chinese thinkers is what to make of Heaven (天). For Confucius, Heaven is the source of moral virtue and an ideal to emulate in human conduct. By and large, he concerns himself with human affairs: self-cultivation, education, and good rule. But Heaven has a will on Earth, personality and intent, and what is good in men flows down from Heaven. As the Master says, "How great was Yao as a ruler! So majestic! It is Heaven that is great, and it was Yao who modeled himself upon it" (Analects 8.19). Mengzi...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday he was hopeful that Chinese Confucius Institute cultural centers on U.S. university campuses would all be shut down by the end of the year. "I think everyone's coming to see the risk associated with them," Pompeo told Lou Dobbs on the Fox Business Network, accusing the Chinese-government funded institutes of working to recruit "spies and collaborators" at U.S. colleges. "I think these institutions can see that, and I'm hopeful we will get them all closed out before the end of this year." Last month, Pompeo labeled the center...

The image of George Washington’s statue facing the ground after being toppled and vandalized in Portland fills my heart with immense sadness. The imagery set forth a wave of baleful nostalgia of a similar incident 54 years ago. During China’s Cultural Revolution, a prominent statue of Confucius was dismantled by militant university and high school students who referred to themselves as the “Red Guards.” It seems, in many respects, 2020 may be a repeat of 1966.What drove Chinese Communist Party dictator Mao Zedong to launch the Cultural Revolution in May 1966 was his unquenchable desire to seize and maintain...

Chinese spies are spreading throughout the United States as part of “a whole-of-society threat,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers Tuesday. The problem is exacerbated by the “naivete” of U.S. academics who don’t recognize the intelligence collectors among them. “They’re exploiting the very open research-and-development environment that we have, which we all revere, but they’re taking advantage of it,” he said. “So, one of the things we’re trying to do is view the China threat as not just a whole-of-government threat but a whole-of-society threat on their end and I think it’s going to take a whole of-society response by...

More than 100 American colleges and universities house Confucius Institutes, centres of Chinese language and cultural teaching funded and staffed in part with instructors screened by a Chinese government-affiliated entity known as Hanban. The Confucius Institutes may seem to many to be benign outposts offering cultural events programming and non-credit courses in introductory Chinese, calligraphy or Tai Chi, but for nearly as long as the Confucius Institutes have been around – more than 10 years now – they’ve been controversial.

Confucius, an administrator of government in Ancient China, would be proud that America is elevating a "Higher Man" to its highest office. "Higher Man" is the name given to a series of aphorisms Confucius used to describe the virtue of a person with great character and leadership. Confucius comes to us through the translation and interpretation of Will Durant, the co-author (with his wife, Ariel) of the Story of Civilization series of books. These books are (unfortunately) collecting dust on many home library shelves, but (fortunately) they are widely available for sale at Good Will and thrift shops across...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday unleashed a blistering verbal assault on Donald Trump and his proposal for a ban on Muslims entering the country, saying the suggestion violates the principles of American democracy and dismissing the “yapping” from “politicians who tweet.” Obama also angrily pushed back against criticism for not using the term “radical Islamic terrorism,” calling it “loose talk.” “What exactly would using this language accomplish? What exactly would it change?” Obama asked during remarks at the Treasury Department. “Would it make ISIL less committed to try and kill Americans?” he continued, using a different acronym for...

It would have given great offense, had anyone known it was there. For the first half of the 20th century, an eight-foot-tall marble statue of the Prophet Muhammad overlooked Madison Square Park from the rooftop of the Appellate Division Courthouse at Madison Avenue and 25th Street. Sixty years ago, the statue was quietly removed, in an episode that now looks, in light of recent events in Paris, like the model of tact, restraint and diplomacy. What had spared the sensibilities of Muslim passers-by from 1902 to 1955 was that “Muhammad,” by the Mexican sculptor Charles Albert Lopez, was among nine...

Fudan University in Shanghai is to study China's historical figures such as Confucius and the early emperors through modern DNA technology, Beijing Times reports. The studies follow the latest findings published on Monday on Cao Cao, a warlord who lived nearly 2,000 years ago in final years of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It debunked rumors that Cao's father Cao Song was fostered by comparing the DNA of Cao's living descendents and that found in the teeth of Cao's grandfather. Han Sheng from Fudan University, who led the Cao Cao research, says it is a breakthrough in the fields of both...

China’s Nobel-naysaying alternative honors Putin with Confucius Peace Prize By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, December 9, 5:34 PM BEIJING — The sponsors of a would-be Chinese alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize held their second award ceremony on Friday, handing a gold Confucius statue and a certificate meant for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to a pair of exchange students, an organizer said. The Confucius Prize ceremony comes a day before the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize is to be awarded in Oslo, Norway, and as a group of Nobel laureates launched a new campaign calling for China to release last...

China’s Answer to Nobel Mystifies Its Winner By EDWARD WONG BEIJING — The newly created award, named after the venerated Chinese sage whose teachings have been recited for thousands of years, was meant to rival the Nobel Peace Prize, and to lend an air of respectability and gravitas to China’s rise on the world stage. But those lofty goals appeared lost on the Taiwanese politician honored as its first winner. In fact, on Wednesday, the politician, Lien Chan, had yet to hear officially that he had won. Or that he was to appear at the ceremony in Beijing on Thursday...

Imagine for a moment, a Utopian land. One where the leaders of the government require their subjects to remit only ten percent of earnings for the maintenance of peace and order. Where the supreme ruler is bound by the responsibility to prudently steward those funds, to not abuse the right to tax his subjects. A land where abuse by the leader would result in sanctioned rebellion by the people because the leader (in breaking the bargain) lost his divine mandate to rule. "Not possible!" you quickly reply. "No such land has or ever will exist." But it did my friends....

A grand ceremony was held in Qufu, east China's Shandong Province, on Monday to commemorate the 2,560th birthday of Confucius, the great ancient Chinese thinker and philosopher revered around the world. More than 10,000 people, including his descendants, scholars and representatives from foreign embassies in China and international organizations, attended the ceremony at the Confucius Temple in Qufu, his birthplace. Confucius and his disciples advocated positive self-discipline, healthy living, maintaining harmony in family life, peace and order in the country, peace in the world. His thoughts are still studied worldwide.

Confucius, he has many descendants By Richard Spencer in Beijing Last Updated: 1:27am GMT 19/02/2008 More than a million people around the world have responded to an appeal for people who think that they are descendants of the Chinese sage Confucius. The appeal was made by Kong Deyong, a 77th generation descendant of Confucius who founded the Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee and is based in the family's home town of Qufu, eastern China. Confucious: founding father of Chinese political and ethical thought Mr Kong, a senior member of the Confucius clan, fled to Hong Kong after the Cultural Revolution, when...

Marxism no longer serves as Chinese society's guiding ideology. But that doesn't mean the end of ideology. Western experts hope liberal democracy will fill the void, but... In China, the moral vacuum is being filled by Christian sects, Falun Gong and extreme forms of nationalism. But the government considers that such alternatives threaten the hard-won peace and stability that underpins China's development, so it has encouraged the revival of Confucianism. ..."Confucius said, 'Harmony is something to be cherished,'" President Hu Jintao noted in February 2005. A few months later, he instructed China's party cadres to build a "harmonious society." Echoing...

Beijing shopgirl could be descendant of Confucius By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 20/06/2006) Kong Tao is a 24-year-old sales assistant from a humble village background in eastern China, living in Beijing. But popular belief has it that she is a descendant of Confucius, the Great Sage. Now Miss Kong, with three million other people worldwide, may be able to find out whether her claim to fame is well-merited, or whether she can return to obscurity. The Chinese Academy of Science has said it is willing to offer DNA tests to anyone claiming Confucius as an ancestor. Since Confucius's proper...

Lesbian Basketball, Season 9 vs. the Indy Chick June 02, 2005 By Debbie Schlussel What’s the difference between the WNBA and Danica Patrick? For one thing, she looks like a woman, and they don’t. Then there’s Title IX—affirmative action for useless women’s sports no-one cares about, like water polo and crew (a/k/a “You Gotta Regatta Lesbiatta”). WNBA players had Title IX to succeed, but are in season nine of extreme failure. Danica Patrick—the rookiette race-car driver who came in forth at Sunday’s Indy 500—didn’t have Title IX. They don’t have it in racing. The IRL only has that amazing non-governmental...

All manner of essays from the Left and Right, presented for your reading (and quoting) pleasure.. All EssaysQuotations Links to Related Topics

I'm having an argument with some liberals and the Internet is not going to be of much help, so I need someone who has a print source of Confucius quotes. The quote is: Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. There are a bunch of whacky liberals where I work saying that its a quote from Nelson Mandela. I'm trying to tell them that since ol' Nelson lived about 1500 years after Confucius did, it makes him a PLAGIARIST. The real problem is that when you search the interent there are abundant...