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Who really said it

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others

Spoken by Confucius (as translated by James Legge) Confucius 551–479 BC · Chinese teacher & philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period
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This one is real. It is the Analects, Book XV (“Wei Ling Kung”), chapter XXIII: the disciple Tsze-kung asks for a single word to live by, and the Master answers shu — reciprocity. The famous English sentence is James Legge’s translation ↗, first published in 1861, of eight Chinese characters: 己所不欲，勿施於人.

Last verified 29 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others” Confucius, The Analects, Book XV, ch. XXIII, trans. James Legge, in The Chinese Classics, vol. 1 (London: Trübner & Co., 1861) — "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." Original: 己所不欲，勿施於人. Verified provenance: quotle.info

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Provenance

Where the line actually comes from

Work
The Analects (Lun Yü), Book XV (“Wei Ling Kung”), ch. XXIII
Translation
James Legge, in The Chinese Classics, vol. 1 (London: Trübner & Co., 1861)
Original wording
己所不欲，勿施於人 (jĭ suǒ bù yù, wù shī yú rén)
Numbering note
Legge prints it as XV:23; the Chinese Text Project and many modern editions number the same passage 15.24

Tsze-kung asked, saying, ‘Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?’ The Master said, ‘Is not RECIPROCITY such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.’

As printed in Legge’s English text, capitals and all. “Tsze-kung” is Legge’s Victorian romanization of the disciple Zigong — the Chinese Text Project renders the same name “Zi Gong” ↗ alongside the identical Legge translation.

Scanned first edition, 1861
Legge’s Chinese Classics, vol. 1 (1861) at the Internet Archive
Analects, Book 15 at the Chinese Text Project — Chinese with Legge’s English

How we verified this

  • The sentence appears verbatim as BOOK XV, CHAP. XXIII in the Project Gutenberg text of Legge’s translation of the Analects ↗, standing between chapters XXII and XXIV.
  • The Chinese Text Project ↗ sets the Chinese — 子貢問曰：「有一言而可以終身行之者乎？」子曰：「其恕乎！己所不欲，勿施於人。」 — beside the identical Legge English, and numbers the passage 24 rather than 23.
  • Wikiquote ↗ lists the line in its sourced Analects material, cited as Chapter XV:23 — not in its Misattributed section, which is where most famous “Confucius” lines end up.
  • The translation’s date is fixed by the volume itself: the Internet Archive catalogue record ↗ gives Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. I, Trübner & Co., 1861, and Wikisource ↗ describes its text as Vol. I of Legge’s Chinese Classics (1861), reprinted in 1893.
Public domain

The Chinese original has been in the public domain for millennia, and the exact English wording quoted here comes from James Legge’s translation first published in 1861 — long before 1931, so it too is public domain in the United States. That status attaches to Legge’s sentence specifically: a modern translation of the same eight characters is a separate work and may still be in copyright.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Right author, borrowed words

The attribution holds — what usually goes wrong here is precision. Confucius is one of the internet’s most-forged authors, and the English sentence everyone shares is a Victorian Scotsman’s prose, not the Master’s.

James Legge, not Confucius Translation, not transcript

The answer in the Analects is eight characters, 己所不欲，勿施於人. “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others” is Legge’s English ↗ — and Legge rendered the very same eight characters differently elsewhere, giving Analects 12:2 as “not to do to others as you would not wish done to yourself” ↗. Quoting the English as Confucius’s exact words overstates the case.

Commonly merged with the Christian Golden Rule Conflation

The rule most readers know is positive — Matthew 7:12: “all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” ↗. The Confucian formulation is negative: do not do. The two are routinely quoted as though they were one sentence from one source.

Confucius, credited with lines he never said Pattern

Wikiquote hands “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” back to Laozi’s Tao Te Ching, ch. 64 ↗, and “I hear and I forget…” to Xunzi. Quote Investigator found the Confucius credit for “choose a job you love” “spurious,” first surfacing in a 1985 magazine article ↗. Against that background suspicion is healthy — it just does not survive contact with this passage.

The verdict: genuinely Confucius, genuinely the Analects — Book XV, ch. XXIII in Legge’s 1861 translation ↗. Just don’t call the English his own words.

Context

One word to live by

Tsze-kung wanted a shortcut — a single word he could carry through an entire life. Confucius gave him shu, which Legge set in capitals as RECIPROCITY, then compressed the whole of it into eight characters. The form matters: this is the Golden Rule stated as a restraint rather than a programme. It does not tell you what good to do for people; it tells you to stop short of what you would hate having done to you.

Confucius did not treat it as easy. Earlier in the same collection, at Book V, ch. XI of Legge’s text ↗, Tsze-kung announces that he already lives by the principle — “What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men” — and the Master flatly replies that he has not attained to it. Short enough to memorise in a breath, hard enough to occupy a lifetime: exactly what the disciple asked for.

“Is not RECIPROCITY such a word?”

Why the chapter number keeps moving

XV:23 or 15.24. Legge’s own edition prints this as Book XV, chapter XXIII, and Wikiquote follows him with “Chapter XV:23.” The Chinese Text Project numbers the identical passage 24. Neither is an error — editors have long divided Book XV slightly differently — so citations you meet in the wild read 15:23 or 15:24 for the same eight characters.

The same eight characters, twice. 己所不欲，勿施於人 also appears at Analects 12:2, folded into Confucius’s answer to Chung-kung about perfect virtue. Legge translated it there as “not to do to others as you would not wish done to yourself,” which is why the maxim circulates in English in several wordings that are all, underneath, the same sentence.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Kindness Character Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Analects, Book 15 (Chinese + Legge’s English)ctext.org

The primary text: the original 己所不欲，勿施於人 paired with Legge’s translation, numbered there as passage 24.
The Analects of Confucius, trans. James Legge (full text)gutenberg.org

Legge’s complete English Analects, where the line stands as BOOK XV, CHAP. XXIII.
The Chinese Classics, Vol. I (1861 first edition)archive.org

Scan of the volume that introduced this wording, catalogued as Legge, Trübner & Co., 1861.
Confucius — sourced and misattributed sayingsen.wikiquote.org

Files this line as sourced (Chapter XV:23), and separately catalogues the famous fakes such as “a journey of a thousand miles.”
Quote Investigator: the Confucius filequoteinvestigator.com

Nine investigations into sayings wrongly pinned on Confucius — context for why readers doubt this one.
Confucius (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)plato.stanford.edu

Scholarly account of his traditional dates (551–479 BCE) and how the Analects was compiled by his disciples.

The author

About Confucius

Confucius

551–479 BC · Chinese teacher, editor & philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period

Confucius (Kong Qiu; also Kongzi, “Master Kong”) was a teacher and sometime official from the state of Lu whose ideas on virtue, ritual, and humane conduct became the backbone of the Confucian tradition. He wrote no book: his words survive in the Analects (Lunyu), which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes as compiled by first- and second-generation disciples ↗ and then transmitted privately for centuries. Asked here for one word to live by, he gave shu — reciprocity — then defined it in eight characters.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Confucius, The Analects (Lun Yü), Book XV (“Wei Ling Kung”), ch. XXIII, translated by James Legge, in The Chinese Classics, vol. 1, Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean (London: Trübner & Co., 1861).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others’?” Last verified 29 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/what-you-do-not-want-done-to-yourself-do-not-do-to-others/

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