Confucius and "The Analects of Confucius"

When I see the topic of this week—“Tracing Our Roots”, I think of an old Chinese book---- "The Analects of Confucius"and Confucius, who is the writer of this book. At the beginning, I want to give a brief introduction about Confucius, who is one of the most famous Chinese thinkers and social philosophers, and whose thought has very big influences on every Chinese.Confusius lived in 551 BC to 479 BC in the Spring and Autumn Time .His ancestors were in aristocray.However, since his father died when he was three years old, his family became poorer and poorer. During his childhood, he was interested in the study of etiquette and ceremony. When he grew up, he was really good at archery and horse riding. Because he is eager for knowledge, he asked as many teachers as he could in order to get more knowledge. When he was 30 years old, he had become a very famous learned man in his country, and opened his own school in his own country. And his school was the first private school. Once he was praised by the emperor, however, because of some bad people, he lost his chance to be a minister of his country. Then he devoted himself into teaching and studying .In his early fifty, he was reused by the emperor. But later on, because the emperor was addicted of beautiful girls and ignored all the politics, Confucius decided to retire and then he travel all the around countries.

In his old years, Confucius is just engaged in teaching .After his dead ,his students arranged all his works and combined with his words and some words from his students, then his students published the book ,which is called "The Analects of Confucius",the most famous book ever in Chinese history .Here, we must define it clearly:"The Analects of Confucius" is not written by Confucius, but is edited by his students. The structure of this book is quite simple because it all are single sentence which is said by Confucius or his students. However, this book has a very significant influence in Chinese history, and it also influences modern Chinese people. Even in my junior high school, I have to study it by heart in my Chinese classes and during tests, we should answer questions about some sentences from this book .However, in my opinion,I think the thought of Confucius is very useful even in today’s life."The Analects of Confucius"contains the principle for us how to be a good person.

As human beings ,we should never forget our roots ,and I think we need to spend time to tracing our roots.Only in this way can we learn our history better and it would help us to develop and form the value of the world.