Love in Time of Cholera Essay Example for Free

Love in Time of Cholera Essay Time of CholeraLove, as Mickey and Sylvia, in their 1956 hit single, remind us, love is strange. As we grow older it gets stranger, until at some point mortality has come well within the frame of our attention, and there we are, suddenly caught between terminal dates while still talking a game of eternity. Its about then that we may begin to regard love songs, romance novels, soap operas and any live teen-age pronouncements at all on the subject of love with an increasingly impatient, not to mention intolerant, ear. At the same time, where would any of us be without all that romantic infrastructure, without, in fact, just that degree of adolescent, premortal hope? Pretty far out on lifes limb, at least. Suppose, then, it were possible, not only to swear love forever, but actually to follow through on it to live a long, full and authentic life based on such a vow, to put ones alloted stake of precious time where ones heart is? This is the extraordinary premise of Gabriel Garcia Marquezs new novel  Love in the Time of Cholera,  one on which he delivers, and triumphantly. In the postromantic ebb of the 70s and 80s, with everybody now so wised up and even growing paranoid about love, once the magical buzzword of a generation, it is a daring step for any writer to decide to work in loves vernacular, to take it, with all its folly, imprecision and lapses in taste, at all seriously that is, as well worth those higher forms of play that we value in fiction. For Garcia Marquez the step may also be revolutionary. I think that a novel about love is as valid as any other, he once remarked in a conversation with his friend, the journalist Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza (published as El Olor de la Guayaba, 1982). In reality the duty of a writer the revolutionary duty, if you like is that of writing well. And oh boy does he write well. He writes with impassioned control, out of a maniacal serenity: the Garcimarquesian voice we have come to recognize from the other fiction has matured, found and developed new resources, been brought to a level where it can at once b e classical and familiar, opalescent and pure, able to praise and curse, laugh and cry, fabulate and ing and when called upon, take off and soar, as in this description of a turn-of-the-century balloon trip: From the sky they could see, just as God saw them, the ruins of the very old and heroic city of Cartagena de Indias, the most beautiful in the world, abandoned by its inhabitants because of the sieges of the English and the atrocities of the buccaneers. They saw the walls, still intact, the brambles in the streets, the fortifications devoured by heartsease, the marble palaces and the golden altars and the viceroys rotting with plague inside their armor. They flew over the lake dwellings of the Trojas in Cataca, painted in lunatic colors, with pens holding iguanas raised for food and balsam apples and crepe myrtle hanging in the lacustrian gardens. Excited by everyones shouting, hundreds of naked children plunged into the water, jumping out of windows, jumping from the roofs of the houses and from the canoes that they handled with astonishing skill, and diving like shad to recover the bundles of clothing, the bottles of cough syrup, the beneficent food that the beautiful lady with the feathered hat threw to them from the basket of the balloon. This novel is also revolutionary in daring to suggest that vows of love made under a presumption of immortality youthful idiocy, to some may yet be honored, much later in life when we ought to know better, in the face of the undeniable. This is, effectively, to assert the resurrection of the body, today as throughout history an unavoidably revolutionary idea. Through the ever-subversive medium of fiction, Garcia Marquez shows us how it could all plausibly come about, even wild hope for somebody out here, outside a book, even as inevitably beaten at, bought and resold as we all must have become if only through years of simple residence in the injuring and corruptive world. Heres what happens. The story takes place between about 1880 and 1930, in a Caribbean seaport city, unnamed but said to be a composite of Cartagena and Barranquilla as well, perhaps, as cities of the spirit less officially mapped. Three major characters form a triangle whose hypotenuse is Florentino Ariza, a poet dedicated to love both carnal and transcendent, though his secular fate is with the River Company of the Caribbean and its small fleet of paddle-wheel steamboats. As a young apprentice telegrapher he meets and falls forever in love with Fermina Daza, a beautiful adolescent with . . . almondsshaped eyes, who walks with a natural haughtiness . . . her does gait making her seem immune to gravity. Though they exchange hardly a hundred words face to face, they carry on a passionate and secret affair entirely by way of letters and telegrams, even after the girls father has sound out and taken her away on an extended journey of forgetting. But when she returns, Fermina rejects the lovesick young man after all, and eventually meets and marries instead Dr. Juvenal Urbino who, like the hero of a I9th-century novel, is well born, a sharp dresser, somewhat stuck on himself but a terrific catch nonetheless. For F lorentino, loves creature, this is an agonizing setback, though nothing fatal. Having sworn to love Fermina Daza forever, he settles in to wait for as long as he has to until shes free again. This turns out to be 51 years, 9 months and 4 days later, when suddenly, absurdly, on a Pentecost Sunday around 1930, Dr. Juvenal Urbino dies, chasing a parrot upon mango tree. After the funeral, when everyone else has left, Florentino steps forward with his hat over his heart Fermina, he declares, I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love. Shocked and furious, Fermina orders him out of the house. And dont show your face again for the years of life that are left to you . . . I hope there are very few of them. The hearts eternal vow has run up against the worlds finite terms. The confrontation occurs near the end of the first chapter, which recounts Dr. Urbinos last day on earth and Ferminas first night as a widow. We then flash back 50 years, into the time of cholera. The m iddle chapters follow the lives of the three characters through the years of the Urbinos marriage and Florentino Arizas rise at the River Company, as one century ticks over into the next. The last chapter takes up again where the first left off, with Florentine now, in the face of what many men would consider major rejection, resolutely setting about courting Fermina Daza all over again, doing what he must to win her love. In their city, throughout a turbulent half-century, death has proliferated everywhere, both as el colera, the fatal disease that sweeps through in terrible intermittent epidemics, and as la colera, defined as choler or anger, which taken to its extreme becomes warfare. Victims of one, in this book, are more than once mistaken for victims of the other. War, always the same war, is presented here not as the continuation by other means of any politics that can possibly matter, but as a negative force, a plague, whose only meaning is death on a massive scale. Against this dark ground, lives, so precarious, are often more and less conscious projects of resistance, even of sworn opposition, to death. Dr. Urbino, like his father before him, becomes a leader in the battle against the cholera, promoting public health measures obsessively, heroically. Fermina, more conventionally but with as much courage, soldiers on in her chosen role of wife, mother and household manager, maintaining a safe perimeter for her family. Florentino embraces Eros, deaths well-known long-time enemy, setting off on a career of seductions that eventually add up to 622 long term liaisons, apart from . . . countless fleeting adventures, while maintaining, impervious to time, his deeper fidelity, his unquenchable hope for a life with Fermina. At the end he can tell her truthfully though she doesnt believe it for a minute that he has remained a virgin for her. So far as this is Florentinos story, in a way his Bildungsroman, we find ourselves, as he earns the suspension of our disbelief, cheering him on, wishing for the success of this stubborn warrior against age and death, and in the name of love. But like the best fictional characters, he insists on his autonomy, refusing to be anything less ambiguous than human. We must take him as he is, pursuing his tomcat destiny out among the streets and lovers refuges of this city with which he lives on terms of such easy intimacy, carrying with him a potential for disasters from which he remains safe, immunized by a comical but dangerous indifference to consequences that often borders on criminal neglect. The widow Nazaret, one of many widows he is fated to make happy, seduces him during a nightlong bombardment from the cannons of an attacking army outside the city. Ausencia Santanders exquisitely furnished home is burgled of every movable item while she and Florentino are frolicking in bed. A girl he picks up at Carnival time turns out to be a homicidal machete-wielding escapee from the local asylum. Olimpia Zuletas husband murders her when he sees a vulgar endearment Florentino has been thoughtless enough to write on her body in red paint. His lovers amorality causes not only individual misfortune but ecological destruction as well: as he learns by the end of the book, his River Companys insatiable appetite for firewood to fuel its steamers has wiped out the great forests that once bordered the Magdalena river system, leaving a wasteland where nothing can ive. With his mind clouded by his passion for Fermina Daza he never took the trouble to think about it, and by the time he realized the truth, there was nothing anyone could do except bring in a new river. In fact, dumb luck has as much to do with getting Florentino through as the intensity or purity of his dream. The authors great affection for this character does not entirely overcome a sly concurrent subversion of the ethic of machismo, of which Garcia Marquez is not especially fond, having described it elsewhere simply as usurpation of the rights of others. Indeed, as weve come to expect from his fiction, its the women in this story who are stronger, more attuned to reality. When Florentino goes crazy with live, developing symptoms like those of cholera, it is his mother Transito Ariza, who pulls him out of it. His innumerable lecheries are rewarded not so much for any traditional masculine selling points as for his obvious and aching need to be loved. Women go for it. He is ugly and sad, Fermina Dazas cousin Hildebranda tells her, but he is all love. And Garcia Marquez, straight-faced teller of tall tales, is his biographer. At the age of 19, as he has reported, the young writer underwent a literary epiphany on reading the famous opening lines of Kafkas  Metamorphosis,  in which a man wakes to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Gosh, exclaimed Garcia Marquez, using in Spanish a word in English we may not, thats just the way my grandmother used to talk! And that, he adds is when novels began to interest him. Much of what come [sic] in his work to be called magical realism was, as he tells it, simply the presence of that grandmotherly voice. Nevertheless, in this novel we have come a meaningful distance from Macondo, the magical village in  One Hundred Years of Solitude  where folks routinely sail through the air and the dead remain in everyday conversation with the living: we have descended, perhaps in some way down the same river, all the way downstream, into war and pestilence and urban confusions to the edge of a Caribbean haunted less by individual dead than by a history which has brought so appallingly many down, without ever having sopoken, or having spoken gone unheard, or having been heard, left unrecorded. As revolutionary as writing well is the duty to redeem these silences, a duty Garcia Marquez has here fulfilled with honor and compassion. It would be presumptuous to speak of moving beyond  One Hundred Years of Solitude  but clearly Garcia Marquez has moved somewhere else, not least into deeper awareness of the ways in which, as Florentino comes to learn, nobody teaches life anything. There are still delightful and stunning moments contrary to fact, still told with the same unblinking humor presences at the foot of the bed, an anonymously delivered doll with a curse on it, the sinister parrot, almost a minor character, whose pursuit ends with the death of Dr. Juvenal Urbino. But the predominant claim on the authors attention and energies comes from what is not so contrary to fact, a human consensus about reality in which love and the possibility of loves extinction are the indispensable driving forces, and varieties of magic have become, if not quite peripheral, then at least more thoughtfully deployed in the service of an expanded vision, matured, darker than before but no less clement. It could be argued that this is the only honest way to write about love, that without the darkness and the finitude there might be romance, erotica, social comedy, soap opera all genres, by the way, that are well represented in this novel but not the Big L. What that seems to require, along with a certain vantage point, a certain level of understanding, is an authors ability to control his own love for his characters, to withhold from the reader the full extent of his caring, in other words not to lapse into drivel. In translating  Love in the Time of Cholera,  Edith Grossman has been attentive to this element of discipline, among many nuances of the authors voice to which she is sensitively, imaginatively attuned. My Spanish isnt perfect, but I can tell that she catches admirably and without apparent labor the swing and translucency of his writing, its slang and its classicism, the lyrical stretches and those end-of-sentence zingers he likes to hit us with. It is a faithful and beautiful piece of work. There comes a moment, early in his career at the River Company of the Caribbean when Florentino Ariza, unable to write even a simple commercial letter without some kind of romantic poetry creeping in, is discussing the problem with his uncle Leo XII, who owns the company. Its no use, the young man protests Love is the only thing that interests me. The trouble, his uncle replies, is that without river navigation, there is no love. For Florentino, this happens to be literally true: the shape of his life is defined by two momentous river voyages, half a century apart. On the first he made his decision to return and live forever in the city of Fermina Daza, to persevere in his love for as long as it might take. On the second, through a desolate landscape, he journeys into love and against time, with Fermina, at last by his side. There is nothing I have read quite like this astonishing final chapter, symphonic, sure in its dynamics and tempo, moving like a riverboat too, its author and pilot, with a lifetimes experience steering us unerringly among hazards of skepticism and mercy, on this river we all know, without whose navigation there is no love and against whose flow the effort to return is never worth a less honorable name than remembrance at the very best it results in works that can even return our worn souls to us, among which most certainly belongs  Love in the Time of Cholera,  this shining and heartbreaking novel.

Constitutional Democracy Essay -- essays research papers

Constitutional Democracy The basic premise of a constitutional democracy is that government has rules and all of the people have voices. Through free and fair elections we elect candidates to represent us. The Constitution of the United States guarantees us the right to do this, and to live democratically. The framers attacked tyrannical government and advanced the following ideas: that government comes from below, not from above, and that it derives its powers from the consent of the governed; that men have certain natural, inalienable rights; that it is wise and feasible to distribute and balance powers within government, giving local powers to local governments, and general powers to the national government; that men are born equal and should be treated as equal before the law. The framers of the U. S. Constitution sought to make these ideas the governing principles of a nation. Constitutional democracy has three basic elements. Those being interacting values, interrelated political processes and interdependent political structures. The first idea of interacting values is popular consent. Popular consent means that government must obtain consent for its actions from the people it governs. It is similar to majority rule, a political process, in that the most popular acts or ideas of the people will be adopted by our government. There must be an allowance or willingness on behalf of the unpopular group to lose. Popular consent may provide a means for judging parental consent laws for minors seeking abortion. Since minors are not legally allowed to be competent to engage in sex, to enter into contracts, or to form sufficient "informed consent" to agree to their own medical treatment, it is incredible that they would be regarded as competent to make a life and death decision about something that later in life they might themselves regard as a real person, with individual rights Drawing on several major contributions of the enlightenment, including the political theory of John Locke and the economic ideas of Adam Smith, individualism posts the individual human being as the basic unit out of which all larger social groups are constructed and grants priority to his or her rights and interests over those of the state or social group... ...ve powers of the president likewise were proscribed in a number of places by designated responsibilities. The judicial power was to be wielded by judges. Explicit jurisdiction of the courts was subject to congressional definition. Checks and balances are the constitutional controls whereby separate branches of government have limiting powers over each other so that no branch will become supreme. Perhaps the best known system of checks and balances operates in the U.S. government under provisions of the federal constitution. The operation of checks and balances in the federal government is spelled out in the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States has afforded us many rights. At times, those rights are in contention. At others, we would be in anarchy without them. Constitutional democracy is a beautiful thing. Although we may not all have the same amount of wealth, we have the liberty to. We have the right to be heard. And how is this right anymore exemplified than voting? Our representatives will do what we want, and if they don't give us a couple of years and we'll find someone else who will promise to. AMEN.

Rail Way Ticket Reservation

Object Oriented Systems Analysis and Design (OOSAD) 15. 3. 3 OOA of Railway Ticket Reservation System Assume that domain analysis is complete and DAD is ready for reference. The analyst also has a fair knowledge of the system and the system environment. For the sake of convenience and to reduce complexity at this stage in OOA, we are ignoring certain conditions, constraints and features that the real system may have. For example, we are not considering cancellation of tickets as a requirement. We assume all passengers irrespective of their type (senior citizen, military personnel, special category passengers etc. are the same, and therefore are charged with the same fare. We begin with the statement of requirement of the system. u System Requirement l The passenger has a prior knowledge of the reservation and ticketing system. The passenger arrives at the railway ticket counter and interacts with the counter clerk first through an enquiry and then follows the process of form filling, tendering, payment and collecting the tickets. l Passenger accepts the ticket or leaves the counter.l Passenger seeks information on fare, train timings and availability of tickets. Passenger can have single ticket or multiple tickets. l Journey begins on a day and will be over with one break in between. l Passenger is identified by name, age, sex and address. l Trains are identified by name and number. l No receipt is issued for money transacted. l Output of the system is ticket(s) with details. l The process is triggered through a form filled by the passenger detailing the requirements of tickets, train, date, etc. l A form is used for each train. If the journey requires use of multiple trains, separate forms are used for each train. Identify the Actors The actors in the system are the passenger, the counter clerk and the reservation system consisting of form processing, reservation, fare computation, ticket processing, ticket printing, collection of fare amount and posting as su b-systems. The passenger is a passive user–actor who initiates the process and obtains the ticket(s), a goal of measurable value. The counter clerk is an active user–actor, who triggers the system and has the role of issuing the tickets with the responsibility of collecting the correct fare amount from the passenger, which is a measurable value.Predesigned and deployed ticket reservation system at the back end is a system actor–user to ensure that ticket processing is done correctly and different system statuses are updated on issuing of tickets. This actor has an active role and responsibility at the back end. u Develop Business Process Model – Reservation and Issue of Tickets Based on the system observation by the analyst, a high-level activity diagram is drawn modeling the process of reservation and issue of tickets to the passenger. The activity diagram brings everybody concerned with the system on the ground to a common understanding of the system as it functions.Object Oriented Analysis (OOA) +D=FJAH# â€Å"†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ We use this activity diagram of the process to develop use cases, which together achieves the goal of issuing the ticket. Fig. 15. 3 Activity Diagram of Reservation and Issue of Tickets Passenger Comes to the Counter Collects the Reservation Form ; Writes Details Clerk Enters Form Details on the Screen Triggers Ticket Printing Process Submits form to the Counter Clerk Validates, Verifies Availability Not OK OK Triggers Fare Process, Arrives at the Fare Amount Prints the Tickets Form Modified Not OKOK Issues Tickets *We do not see this as possibility in real world. Passenger may walk out of the system Collects Fare Amount Not OK * Confirms OK with the Passenger Triggers Update Process Attends To Next Passenger u Identify and Develop Use Cases In the ticket reservation systems, users are the passenger, the counter clerk and the Reservation and Ticketing System (R;T System). Take each user and identify the role s played, which would lead us to identify the roles played, which, in turn, would lead us to an identification of use case. Table 15. shows the result of the process of identifying the use cases. The system has three users, eight roles and eleven use cases. To illustrate the process of identifying the use cases, let us take the passenger (a user of the system). A passenger as a user may play one or more of three roles. The roles are 1. Enquiring about the availability of tickets on particular dates to a destination and the fare per ticket. The role is enquiring. 2=HJ111 â€Å"# Object Oriented Systems Analysis and Design (OOSAD) Table 15. 1 Users? Roles? Use Cases. User l Role l l lUse case l l l l l l l l l Passenger Enquiry Reservation and ticketing Cancellation Form data entry Requisition processor Ticket processor Data manager System server Enquire ticket availability and other details. Reserve seats and berths, tickets Cancel tickets Enter Reservation Requisition Form Process requisition for booking Process ticket to print Submits ticket data for updation Process reservation data, process ticketing process cancellation Update the status by date, train, etc. l Counter clerk l l l l l Reservation and ticketing system l 2.Reserving the ticket(s) on a particular train on particular date for a destination by requisitioning through a reservation form The role is reserving and booking tickets. 3. Cancelling the tickets after issuing and payment The role is cancelling. As explained in the case of passenger, the roles are use cases. Similarly, one can probe into the roles and use cases for counter clerk and reservation and ticketing system. u Draw Interaction Diagrams Interaction diagrams are used to show the interactions between user/actor and the system. Use case is a scenario that develops through interaction.Let us model different scenarios through interaction diagrams: Use Case: enquiring on ticket availability 1. Passenger submits information about the date and train, and requirement of tickets to the counter clerk 2. Clerk checks the availability of tickets on the date and train. 3. Communicates the availability status to the passenger. 4. If OK, the passenger proceeds to book the ticket through a requisition form. 5. If not OK, the passenger changes the date or train and requests availability. 6. Steps 2 to 4 are repeated. Figure 15. 4 shows the steps in the activity diagrams of use case enquiry to issue of Tickets. Object Oriented Analysis (OOA) +D=FJAH# â€Å"# Fig. 15. 4 Enquiry to Issue of Tickets Passenger Tells Date Train and Tickets Data Entered into R;T System Not Available Puts New Date and Train R;T Checks Availability Passenger Exits Available Fills Requisition Form R;T Processes the Form Prints Tickets Tickets Issued and Fare Amount Collected Let us draw use case scenarios in use case diagrams for actor passenger. Use Case enquiry: Fig 15. 5. Here use case goal is to convey the ticket availability status to the passenge r on the requested date and train.If the status is ‘available’, the passenger proceeds to book the ticket or may leave the counter. If the status is ‘not available’, the passenger may leave the counter or seek availability for a new date or new train. l 2=HJ111 â€Å"# Object Oriented Systems Analysis and Design (OOSAD) Fig. 15. 5 Use Case Enquiry Enquiries on Availability Enters Requested Data in R&T System Passenger Uses R&T System to Check Reservation Counter Clerk Informs the Status on Availability l Use Case: reservation and ticketing: Fig. 15. 6. Writes Reservation Requisition Form & SubmitsFig. 15. 6 Use Case: Reservation and Ticketing Passenger Form Data Entered Form Processed for Reservation & Ticketing Triggers Ticket Printing Collects Fare Amount and Issues Ticket Uses R&T System Uses Uses Reservation Counter Clerk Updates R&T Ticket Status Steps involved in this use case are: 1. Passenger writes reservation requisition form. 2. Submits to the c ounter clerk. 3. Counter clerk calls ‘Form’ screen. 4. Counter clerk enters form data. 5. Triggers R and T processing. 6. On OK processing, triggers ticket printing. 7. Issues ticket to passenger. . Update the system status. So far we have completed two of the most common and frequently used use cases, i. e. enquiry and reservation and ticketing. The following use cases can be modeled on similar lines. l Cancellation l Process reservation data Object Oriented Analysis (OOA) l l +D=FJAH# â€Å"#! Form data entry l Process ticketing Form processing l Process cancellation l Ticket printing l Status updation When the analyst has completed all use cases in the system, s/he has described and modeled the requirement of reservation and ticketing system.It is possible that in first go s/he may not be able to identify actors and hence use cases. But s/ he will come across their presence in the modeling exercise, and will then go back and analyse further to introduce more actors and use cases. OOA is an intuitive process. Use case–driven OOA up till now has given us broad system requirements in terms of use cases. The OOA model using use cases is to be packaged to model the system. Figure 15. 7 shows the packaging of use cases considered in the R and T system.Fig. 15. 7 R and T System Packaging R;T System Enquiry Ticketing Ticket Availability Processing and Printing Reservation Uses Uses Cancellation Reserving Seats Cancellation and Refund Process Realise that though there are eleven use cases, we have grouped them under four major use case groups, namely l Enquiry l Ticketing l Reservation l Cancellation The remaining use cases are sub-use cases, or, in other words, these four use cases are further decomposed to bring clarity to main use case scenario.How many case scenarios are necessary to represent the system and then to spell out the requirement? There are no set rules or guidelines on this point. More use cases may not necessarily bring better understanding or more clarity. A lot depends on users’ and developers’ level of comfort. What is definitely required is a use case for each major scenario: that is, for enquiry, reservation, ticketing and cancellation. Use cases for different scenarios arising out of smaller input variations need not be modeled.For example, cancellation could be part of a journey, 2=HJ111 â€Å"#† Object Oriented Systems Analysis and Design (OOSAD) reduced number of tickets and so on. Amongst five recommended processes of analysis, use case–driven analysis for ascertaining system requirement is considered best as it considers users’ perspective of the system. When the system is modeled into different case scenarios it not only goes down to the level of function and features, but also reveals relationships and behaviours amongst different system components.Each use case scenario is an instance in the system that has clarity regarding goals and how they are to be ach ieved. The system can be decomposed from major use case at higher level going down to lowest level. This means that lower level use case scenarios together build the major scenario. In use case–driven analysis, so far we have only understood in addition to domain knowledge. l System scope (enquiry, reservation, ticketing and cancellation) l System players (users, actors) l Major functions and processes based as use case scenarios. Some idea on packaging system components for deployment. l System requirements at functional and process level. In short, so far in OOA, we have reached to some extent a situation in which the requirement analysis made so far can be put into a formal RDD document. We still have not reached the specifications level. This is possible when we go further, identifying classes, their relationship, attributes and methods. Use case–driven analysis, displayed in use case models, is a basis for moving into the step of identifying classes and designing classes.

47 Confucius Quotes That Still Ring True Today

Fame, as they say, is fickle. It may take years to reap it and, when you do, you may not have the time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. This was the case for Confucius, an ancient Chinese philosopher whose ideas still resonate today. Who Was Confucius? Kong Qiu, or Master Kong as he was known, did not live to see his days of glory. During his lifetime, his views were received with scorn. But that was about 2,500 years ago. Following his death, a handful of his dedicated followers passed on Confucius teachings to future generations in the book, The Analects of Confucius. Confucius philosophies remained in the archives of ancient Chinese history. As his teachings spread far and wide, his philosophies gained ground. It took many years after Confucius death for his philosophies to be appreciated and revered, but today, Confucianism is an ethical school of thought adopted by many thinkers around the world. Confuciuss Political Life Though Confucius served the Duke of Lu, a Chinese state, he made many enemies with the nobles of the land. His views antagonized the powerful nobles, who wanted the Duke to be a puppet in their hands. Confucius was exiled from the State of Lu for more than two decades, so he lived in the countryside, spreading his teachings. Confuciuss Ideologies and Philosophy Confucius gave great importance to education. He devoted his time to gain new insights and learned from renowned scholars of his time. He started his own school at the age of 22. At that time, China was undergoing a state of ideological turmoil; all around there was injustice, war, and evil. Confucius established a moral code of conduct based on human principles of mutual respect, good conduct, and familial ties. Confucianism along with Taoism and Buddhism became the three religious pillars of China. Today, Confucius is revered not just as a moral teacher, but a divine soul who saved the world from moral degradation. Confucianism in the Modern World There is a growing interest in Confucianism in China and other parts of the world. More and more followers of Confucianism are advocating a deeper study of his philosophies. Confucius ideals stand true even today. His philosophy on how to be a Junzi or the perfect gentleman is based on the simple ideology of love and tolerance. 47 Sayings From Confucius Here is one of Confuciuss sayings: It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop. In a few words, Confucius teaches us about patience, perseverance, discipline, and hard work. But if you probe further, you will see more layers. Confuciuss philosophies, which are similar to humanist thought, have significantly influenced spiritual and social thought. His views bear insight and depth of wisdom, you can apply his teachings in every sphere of life.   Confucian proverbs  have the power to transform lives, but they are not for casual reading. When you read them once, you feel the power of his words; read twice, and you will appreciate his deep thought; read them over and over again, and you will be enlightened. Let these Confucian quotes guide you in life. Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.When anger rises, think of the consequences.When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, dont adjust the goals; adjust the action steps.Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.Suc cess depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation, there is sure to be failure.Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.Mens natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart.Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.Respect yourself and others will respect you.Silence is a true friend who never betrays.The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved.The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.Study the past if you would define the future.Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.Have no friends not equal to yourself.He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.He who learns but does not think is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.A superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what wi ll sell.By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.He who will not economize will have to agonize.When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful may be called intelligent indeed.If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star.It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve, and bad things are ver y easy to get.Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?