* Confucius - Collected Works, incl. The Analects (24 books)
CONFUCIUS (551–479 BCE) was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Living during the volatile Spring and Autumn period, he was distressed by the rampant violence and moral erosion of his era and sought to establish a blueprint for social and political harmony based on the idealized, virtuous rule of ancient sage-kings. His philosophical teachings, called Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, harmonious social relationships, righteousness, kindness, sincerity, and a ruler's responsibilities to lead by virtue.
Today, his enduring legacy is primarily studied through
THE ANALECTS , or Lunyu (lit. "Selected Sayings"), compiled by disciples of Confucius in the centuries following his death. It has been one of the most widely read and studied books in China for more than two millennia, and its ideas continue to have a substantial influence on Chinese and East Asian thought and values today. It is a collection of aphorisms, historical anecdotes and dialogues embodying the basic values of the Confucian tradition: learning, morality, ritual decorum, and filial piety. Reflecting the model eras of Chinese antiquity, it offers valuable insights into successful governance and the ideal organization of society, which Confucius grounded in a robust family unit. He championed the Silver Rule, or a negative form of the Golden Rule, advising, "Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself."
Labeled a forgery and ignored for centuries, the Dialogues of Confucius was nevertheless preserved and passed down through the generations, purportedly a companion to the Analects. Recent archaeological finds and renewed analysis now suggest that the Dialogues can be accepted as authentic and that it accurately represents the thinking of Confucius on a wide array of topics ranging from education to social norms to cosmology. In
DIALOGUES OF CONFUCIUS (2026), Brian Bruya and Wenwen Li offer the first complete translation of the text in English with a detailed introduction discussing Confucian philosophy, the history of the text, and the debates around its authenticity.
The following books are in ePUB and/or PDF format as noted:
* Analects [tr. Chin] (Penguin, 2014) – ePUB
* Analects [tr. Dawson] (Oxford, 1993) – PDF
* Analects [tr. Hinton] (Counterpoint, 2014) – ePUB
* Analects [tr. Huang] (Oxford, 1997) – PDF
* Analects [tr. Lau] (Penguin, 1979) – ePUB
* Analects [tr. Legge] (Open Road, 2016) – ePUB
* Analects [tr. Leys, ed. Nylan] (Norton Critical Edition, 2014] – PDF
* Analects [tr. Waley] (Modern Library, 1938) – PDF
* Analects [tr. Watson] (Columbia, 2007) – ePUB / PDF
* Analects of Confucius Revisited [ed. Jianguo Chen & Chungmin Tu] (Nishan, 2016) – ePUB
* Analects: A Contemporary Translation [tr. Cline] (Liveright, 2026) – ePUB
* Analects: A Philosophical Translation [tr. Ames & Rosemont] (Ballantine, 1998) – ePUB
* Analects: An Illustrated Edition [tr. Bruya, illus. Tsai] (Princeton, 2018) – PDF
* Analects: Conclusions and Conversations [tr. Roberts] (California, 2020) – ePUB
* Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries [tr. Slingerland] (Hackett, 2003) – ePUB / PDF
* Collected Works (Delphi Classics, 2016) – ePUB
* Dialogues of Confucius: The Complete Text [tr. Bruya & Li] (Princeton, 2026) – ePUB / PDF
* The Essential Confucius [tr. Cleary] (Castle Books, 1998) – PDF
* First Ten Books [tr. Lau] (Penguin Great Ideas, 2005) – ePUB
* The Four Books: The Basic Teachings of the Later Confucian Tradition [tr. Gardner] (Hackett, 2007) – ePUB
* The Most Venerable Book (Shang Shu) [tr. Palmer et al.] (Penguin, 2014) – ePUB
* The Original Analects [tr. Brooks & Brooks] (Columbia, 1998) – PDF
* Understanding the Analects: A New Translation [tr. Ni] (SUNY, 2017) – ePUB / PDF
== OTHER == * Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects [Daniel Gardner] (Columbia, 2003) – ePUB / PDF
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