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Confucius
    Keywords: Culture & History, People

Confucius (551-479 BC). Chinese philosopher.

Famous quotes

"It is difficult for a man who always has a full stomach to put his mind to some use. Are there not players of liubo and weiqi? Even playing these games is better than being idle."

-- Analects? (Book 17, Chapter 22) by Confucius
(translated by [ext] Jean-Louis Cazaux)

"The Master said, Hard is it to deal with him, who will stuff himself with food the whole day, without applying his mind to anything good! Are there not gamesters and chess[1] players? To be one of these would still be better than doing nothing at all."

-- Analects? (Book 17, Chapter 22) by Confucius
(translated by James Legge, [ext] Projekt Gutenberg)

"Confucius say: Lovers in triangle, not in square" -- Found in one of the fortune cookies while at local Go club

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Discussion

[1]: Frs: Could someone with knowledge of Chinese language (and weiqi and chess history) please proofread (and fix) the Gutenberg translation which seems to include encoded original Chinese characters.

Niklaus: Knowledge of modern Chinese language unfortunately is not enough for being able to read (and understand) ancient Chinese texts. Grammar as well as the meaning of the characters have changed considerably over the millenia. These texts are also a lot more concise than modern texts, leaving the reader a lot of space for interpretation and speculation. As I will begin my studies in ancient and classical Chinese just in two weeks, I do not at all feel competent to correct Mr. Legge's translation. However, I have read the Essay "Go in the Classics" in the Go Player's Almanac, also available [ext] here, where it is discussed in quite some detail. I guess what bugs you about it is the "gamesters and chess players" bit. This part seems to have puzzled researchers for a long time, but they now came to the conclusion that it means "players of liubo and weiqi", as in the translation by Mr. Cazaux.

Hu: Yes, it seems a common mis-translation of "weiqi" to see it rendered as "chess".

Bill: Indeed. But in this case the original is not weiqi. I think that John Fairbairn has discussed this quotation somewhere. :-)

Niklaus: Right, the character in question is 弈 (pronounced yi).



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