Confucius

Born Kong Qiu around 551 BCE during China's Spring and Autumn period, Confucius saw himself not as an innovator but a conservator, insisting that the values of earlier eras had been abandoned and needed recovery. He taught that personal virtue, filial piety, and harmonious relationships formed the foundation for stable governance, advising rulers to lead by moral example rather than coercion and distilling his ethic into the Silver Rule: "Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself." His ideas gained traction during the Warring States period, stumbled after the Qin conquest, then received official backing under Emperor Wu of Han, when Confucian texts became required study for anyone seeking government office. Through the Tang and Song dynasties the philosophy evolved into Neo-Confucianism; in the twentieth century it resurfaced as New Confucianism in the Republic of China. The Analects, compiled after his death around 479 BCE, captured his aphorisms, though modern scholars caution that some teachings attributed to him draw on older sources.