Confucianism is a philosophical school developed from the teachings of the sage collected in the Analects of Confucius. It is a system of moral, social, political, and religious thought that has had tremendous influence on Chinese history, thought, and culture down to the 21st century. Some Westerners consider it to have been the "state religion" of imperial China. Its influence also spread to other Asian areas such as Korea and Japan.

The main Confucian concepts include ren (humanity or humaneness), zhengming (rectification of names; e.g. a ruler who rules unjustly is no longer a ruler and may be dethroned), zhong (loyalty), xiao (filial piety), and li (ritual). Confucius taught both positive and negative versions of the Golden Rule. The Confucian idea of "Rid of the two ends, take the middle" is a Chinese equivalent of Hegel's idea of "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis", which is a way of reconciling opposites, arriving at some middle ground combining the best of both.