picture in my mind

Because I am Miss-Forever-Distracted, I am not doing my FYP whose deadline is looming ever closer, but quoting Confucius instead:

The Master said, "Yu, have you heard about the six qualities and the six attendant faults?"


"No."


"Be seated and I shall tell you. To love benevolence without loving learning is liable to lead to foolishness. To love cleverness without loving learning is liable to lead to deviation from the right path. To love trustworthiness in word without loving learning is liable to lead to harmful behaviour. To love forthrightness without loving learning is liable to lead to intolerance. To love courage without loving learning is liable to lead to insurbodination. To love unbending strength without loving learning is liable to lead to indiscipline."

In Virtue and Leadership class today, someone said to me, "It's hard not to be critical about this dude (i.e. Confucius); I can't agree with him, mostly." And I agreed, "Yes! I think he was a very confused and dissatisfied man."

This does not mean he wasn't a great and admirable persona, I still think he was and is. But he didn't have a lot of answers, and was clearly unhappy about a great many things. He was a great thinker, but he had no answers, and very little practical resolution to the world's problems. And I don't know, if people have founded a religion or a way of life on his teachings, I don't think it makes a great foundation. He was an idealist searching for truth but didn't find it. He kept saying he wished he could meet a sage, but knew he would likely never meet one. And one of my biggest contentions about The Analects is that women is mentioned in passing only twice, one of which equates women to lowly-minded people. -___-

But the above quote: I like it because if there's one thing I feel Confucius got right, it's the fact that learning is one of the most fundamental values and aims in life. That is why the first word of the Quran to be revealed was also "Iqra'." Which means, READ. Curing ignorance is the first step to betterment.