Analects

What Hacker News says

1. BrunoBernardinoMay 2026
   Top 5 books I've offered (and still offer):

   1. Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (translated by Gia-Fu Feng)

   2. The Analects by Confucius (translated by Annping Chin)

   3. This Is Water by David Foster Wallace

   4. 3 years of Mini Stories - 36 short stories to read quickly, and think slowly — written by me.

   5. As Causas do Atraso Português by Nuno Palma

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2. prossercjOct 2024
   If you want books that can help you learn to think, you can't do better than the classics. I suggest Plato's dialogs or the Analects of Confucius. You may find them more accessible than you expect. They were excellent teachers.

   Here's a good translation of Plato by Benjamin Jowett: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/plato-the-dialogues-of-pl...

   And one of Confucius by James Legge: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/legge-the-chinese-classic...

   Both translations are from the 19th Century and so have entered the public domain. But both are also often considered the best English versions of these works, even today.

   (Note you can download a facsimile pdf of the original book, and print it out as you go. I prefer to read anything long-form that way. Better for concentration in my opinion).

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3. yesenadamNov 2021
   I got into Confucius (Analects), Mencius, Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching) and Zuangzi (aka Chuang Tzu) as a teenager. They're the giants of ancient Chinese philosophy, all very readable. After that I got into western philosophy, but I'm so glad I started with immersion in the Chinese classics.
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4. France_is_baconSep 2021
   Ah, the evil white man patriarchy oppression rears its ugly head yet again. Kill the white male patriarchs.

   The reality is that this line of attack has been going on for a long, long time in regards to the Great Books. I've been reading about people saying this same exact thing for decades.

   Amna Khalid, who wrote this, her opinion is same as pretty much a lot of others that have gone before her.

   As far as the "Great Books", AKA "The Western Canon", go, it part of Western culture. They are there because those books have withstood the test of time. Like today, there are always crappy authors that don't make it, from any age, in any culture. And unlike many (most), I have read most of the books from the Western Canon. As an aside, this really ruins me from reading any books on the New York Times list. The depth of those Great Books is truly remarkable. The Times list...not so much. Anyways, there is a literary tradition, from Homer, from about 750 BC, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two of the foundations of all Greek literature. Aeschylus - 525/524 BC, and so on. On and on. They represent the tradition and history of Western Civilization, which, of course, is evil, evil, evil. And, Amna Khalid - apparently she is supposedly a historian - an Associate Professor of history at Carleton College. Born in Pakistan, Amna earned an M.Phil. & D.Phil. from Oxford University. I don't know, I guess somehow she is unbiased. With Amna Khalid's M.Phil. & D.Phil., this supposedly qualifies her to "teach history" at Carleton College. Although to me, it seems like she is teaching philosophy of how bad Western Culture is, rather than history. It's the standard grievance studies line.

   Any culture that has books from 2,500 years ago, and follows an unbroken literary tradition for 2,500 years, is worthy of note. I've read the Hindu Bhagavad Gita from India, written around 2,500 BC to 2,200 BC. The I Ching. I'm not all twisted up inside because I am white - I don't think that books from other cultures are oppression. And, white people and Chinese people didn't hardly know each other, what's there to "oppress"?

   The thing is - there are other literary canons. There ARE lists of Great Books from Asian, Black, Central and South America.

   While a black canon is being developed, there certainly are great books by black men and women. James Baldwin’s, The Fire Next Time, E. Franklin Frazier’s, Black Bourgeoisie, Cater G. Woodson’s, The Mis-Education of the Negro. Frederick Douglass is a particular hero of mine.

   Asian Literary canon may include:

   、Pre-Imperial and Early Imperial (Before 220AD):

   The Book of Songs, edited by Confucius

   The Spring and Autumn Annals, edited by Confucius

   The Analects, by Confucius

   Mencius, by Mencius

   The Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu

   Chuang Tzu, by Chuang Tzu

   The Songs of the South, by Qu Yuan

   Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian

   二、Mid Imperial and High Imperial (220AD-1279AD):

   The Poetry of Tao Yuanming (also known as Tao Qian or T’ao Ch’ien)

   The Poetry of Wang Wei

   The Poetry of Li Bai (a.k.a. Li Po)

   The Poetry of Du Fu (a.k.a. Tu Fu)

   The Poetry of Han Yu

   The Poetry of Bai Juyi (a.k.a. Po Chu-i)

   The Poetry of Su Shi (a.k.a. Su Tung-po)

   The Poetry of Li Qingzhao (a.k.a. Li Ch’ing-chao)

   三、Late Imperial and Early Modern (1279AD-1912AD):

   Romance of the Western Chamber, by Wang Shifu

   The Peony Pavilion, by Tang Xianzu

   The Palace of Eternal Life, by Hong Sheng

   The Peach Blossom Fan, by Kong Shangren

   The Plum in the Golden Vase, by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

   Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, by Pu Songling

   Unofficial History of the Scholars, by Wu Jingzi

   The Story of the Stone, by Cao Xueqin

   .

   However, all these other cultures have their own literary canon, ie great books. Should we also say that those books are no good?

   I suppose that Amna Khalid knows full well of the Great Books from other literary traditions, and that those can be taught, or like me, read on one's own (universities are supposed to teach people to think and become autodidacts. So since she knows that there are other lists for other cultures, freely available, I suspect her agenda is to continue the overall attack on the white male patriarchy, just use a different avenue for the continuous attack on Western civilization that is all the rage of all the universities.

   I mean, even mathematics is now an evil white male patriarchical oppression. google it if you don't believe me.

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5. earthboundkidSep 2021
   There's a good book called "What Confucius Really Said" that takes the Analects of Confucius and just puts it in a modern idiom. I think in general, the Analects comes off as more Tweet-like than anything in Plato. Plato is more of a playwright who characters go on unrealistically long digressions about whatever idea it is the author was interested in.
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6. CapricornNobleMay 2020
   Machiavelli also wrote a "Discourses on Livy", which mixes politcal philosophy lessons with Roman historical examples.

   I'd recommend Plato's "The Republic". "Mencius" (self-titled work by the Confucian philosopher) and maybe Confucius's "Analects" for political philosophy and leadership.

   For warfare and strategy, other posters have already said Carl Von Clauswitz's "On War" which is pretty much the gold standard of modern military thought publications so I'm going to reiterate it as a must-read. In particular I would focus on Book I, Chapter 3: "The Genius For War". Slightly less well-known is Alfred T. Mahan's "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" but that's less about leadership and much more about strategy.

   A very modern text on tactical leadership would be HJ Poole's "The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO's Contribution to Warfare" https://www.amazon.com/Last-Hundred-Yards-Contribution-Warfa...

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