Thinker

The Great Learning quotes

4 passages in English · Dating varies by source tradition · Confucianism.

Overview

The Great Learning is represented in Philosophy Blind Box through curated English quotations. In some cases the name denotes a historical thinker; in others it denotes a scripture, school text, or traditional attribution. School label in this archive: Confucianism.

Main ideas

Recurring concerns in this selection include Virtue, Philosophy, Morality, Self, Equality. Read each passage with its source note, then follow theme links to see how related thinkers frame the same questions.

Major works

  • Attributed sources listed on quotation pages

Legacy

Readers use The Great Learning as an entry point into Confucianism and into cross-cultural comparison within this archive.

Themes in this archive

Self (2) · The Great Learning on self · Virtue (1) · Philosophy (1)

  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.
  4. Those who wish to cultivate themselves first rectify the mind; those who wish to rectify the mind first make the intention sincere.