Confucius: The Analects

Confucius brings you the Analects one chapter a day: every one of its 499 chapters in James Legge's classic translation, with a short comment and a question beside each.

The Analects are the sayings of Confucius as his disciples remembered them, written down after his death. The app says so, and writes what the text writes: "The Master said". Legge's words are kept exactly as he printed them; our comments, titles and questions are always marked as ours.

TODAY
• The chapter of the day, in order through all twenty books.
• A short comment on what the chapter says, and one question to take into the day.
• The Chinese key word beside Legge's English, so you can see when one word becomes many.
• Share the day's chapter as an image, with its reference and translator.

THE ANALECTS
• All 499 chapters, book by book.
• Search by word or go straight to a reference like II.4.
• Filter by one of the twelve key words. Bookmark any chapter.

TWELVE WORDS
A course of twelve units, seven steps each: ren, li, yi, zhi, xin, xiao, junzi, xue, shu, zhong, de and zhengming. Each word is shown with its character, its pinyin and the English words Legge actually used for it, then read in two chapters, turned into a question, a small exercise for an ordinary day, and a look at what the translation hides. Nothing is graded. The app counts the days you practised as a total that never falls. No streaks, no badges.

PEOPLE
Seventeen people of the Analects, from Yan Hui and Zilu to Zigong and Zengzi, with Legge's spelling beside today's pinyin and every chapter in which they appear.

LORE
Ten articles: who wrote the Analects, one word and its many translations, James Legge, names in Legge, why the hard passages stay in, the Way of Confucius and Laozi, three questions a day, Confucius and the Book of Changes, the Four Books, and more. The Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean are included to read in full.

JOURNAL
Private notes, linked to the chapter you were reading. They stay on this device: never shared, never backed up, never counted.

The text is Legge's 1893 revised translation, in the public domain. It was checked word for word against a second copy of the same translation, and every correction is listed in the app's source notes. Everything works offline, with no account.

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