"At fifteen, I bent my will to study. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I did not doubt what was correct. At fifty, I knew the decrees of heaven. At sixty, my ears became docile towards truth. At seventy, I could follow the mind’s longings without stepping beyond the strict confines of a carpenter’s square." Analects, 2.4 [not all translations]"Confucius (K'ung-fu-tzu or Pinyin Kongfuzi), or Master K'ung, whose life defines the end of the Spring and Autumn Period in Chinese history, becomes long after his death the dominant Chinese philosopher both morally and politically. In the Warring States Period Mencius (Meng Tzu) (c. 390-305 BC) extended and systematized Confucius’s ideas; but with Confucius’s adoption in the Hàn Dynasty as the official moral and political doctrine of the State, the Confucian tradition became so broad that "Scholar" or "Literatus" became all but synonymous with "Confucian," and so Confucianism could simply be called the Ju Chia [Pinyin Ru Jia], or School of the Literati. As one of the "Three Ways," together with Taoism and Buddhism, Confucianism also grew into one of the traditional religions of the Hàn Chinese.At the Sign of the Square and Compasses, Geoffrey Hodson. Theosophical Publishing House: December 1988. ASIN: 0835675246. hc: 300 p. <friesian.com/confuci.htm <Grateful to http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/symbolism/china_texts.html
"At fifteen, I bent my will to study. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I did not doubt what was correct. At fifty, I knew the decrees of heaven. At sixty, my ears became docile towards truth. At seventy, I could follow the mind’s longings without stepping beyond the strict confines of a carpenter’s square." Analects, 2.4 [not all translations]