The Analects

Confucius failed in his lifetime to rescue a crumbling civilization with his teachings, but he was to become the most influential sage in human history. His thought, still remarkably current, survives here in The Analects –a collection of brief aphoristic sayings that has had a deeper impact on more people’s lives over a longer period of time than any other book in human history.Highly regarded for the poetic fluency he brings to his award-winning work, David Hinton is the first twentieth-century translator to render the four central masterworks of ancient Chinese thought: Chuang Tzu, Mencius, The Analects, and Tao Te Ching. His new versions are not only inviting and immensely readable, but they also apply a much-needed consistency to key terms in these texts. Breathing new life into these classics, Hinton’s translations will stand as the definitive series for our era.