WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The book of filial duty cover

The book of filial duty

Chapter 34: CHAPTER XII
By Confucius
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

Mythology, Legends & FolklorePhilosophy & Ethics

About This Book

The work offers a Confucian guide to filial piety, combining doctrinal instruction on respect, ritual care for ancestors, and the family's role as the basis of moral order with twenty-four short exempla and commentaries that model practical devotion. It emphasizes reciprocal duties between generations, the cultivation of reverence in daily conduct, and the idea that domestic harmony underpins wider social and political harmony. Framed as pedagogical material, the text aims to shape personal character and public behavior by teaching youth and families how ritual observance, respect for elders, and familial responsibility foster social cohesion.

CHAPTER XII

AMPLIFICATION OF THE “IMPORTANT DOCTRINE”

Confucius said: “The best way to teach the people to love their sovereign is for the sovereign first to love his own parents; to teach them to be polite to each other is for the sovereign himself first to be polite to all his elders; and to improve bad manners and customs is for him first to pay attention to the composition of the music played in the country.

“What is etiquette? It is simply due respect to one’s elders. If I respect the parents, the son will be pleased; if I respect the elder brothers, the younger ones will be pleased; and if I respect the sovereign, all the ministers will be pleased. I respect only one person, but I please thousands upon thousands. Those to whom the respect is paid are few, and those whom I please are many. This is what is called an ‘important doctrine.’”