Q0366

The Great Learning

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Those who wish to cultivate themselves first rectify the mind; those who wish to rectify the mind first make the intention sincere.
Thinker The Great Learning
School Confucianism
Source The Great Learning
Theme Self
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with The Great Learning, within the tradition of Confucianism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of self, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In The Great Learning's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: The Great Learning. (n.d.). Those who wish to cultivate themselves first rectify the mind; those who wish to rectify the mind first make the intention sincere. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0366

MLA: The Great Learning. “Those who wish to cultivate themselves first rectify….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0366.

Chicago: The Great Learning. “Those who wish to cultivate themselves first rectify….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0366.

Same thinker

More from The Great Learning

  1. The way of great learning lies in illuminating luminous virtue, in renewing the people, and in resting in the highest good.
  2. From the Son of Heaven down to the common people, all alike take the cultivation of the person as the root.
  3. Things have roots and branches; affairs have ends and beginnings. To know what comes first and what follows is to be near the Way.

All quotations by The Great Learning

Same theme

More on self

  1. A friend is another self.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. I searched for myself.
  4. It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
  5. Claim yourself for yourself.

Browse the self theme