Confucius: Learn about Confucius

Learn about Confucius, the fifth-century BCE Chinese thinker whose influence on East Asian culture is immense. Explore his ethical views, his role as a transmitter of Zhou traditions, and his mythical and historical portrayals. Confucianism, the way of life propagated by Confucius (6th–5th century BCE) and followed by the Chinese people for more than two millennia. Still the substance of learning, the source of values, and the social code of the Chinese, it has also influenced other countries, particularly Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Confucius (551–479 BC) was a Chinese philosopher, teacher, and political figure whose ideas have deeply influenced Chinese culture and East Asian civilization for over two millennia. Confucius, China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, whose ideas have profoundly influenced the civilization of East Asia. Confucius’s life and teachings were an expression of self-cultivation, of the ability of human effort to shape its own destiny.