# The "Golden Rule"

One widespread ethical principle is what English speakers sometimes call the “[Golden Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule) {cite:p}`GoldenRule2023`”:

- “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.**’”
  - Confucius, [Analects 15.23](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Classics/Volume_1/Confucian_Analects/XV) {cite:p}`studentsConfucianAnalects` (~500 BCE China)
- “There is nothing dearer to man than himself; therefore, as it is the same thing that is dear to you and to others, **hurt not others with what pains yourself**.”
  - Gautama Buddha, [Udānavarga 5:18](https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/index.php?page=record&vid=71&mid=208435) {cite:p}`BibliothecaPolyglotta` (~500 BCE Nepal/India)
- “**That which is hateful to you do not do to another**; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation.”
  - Hillel the Elder, [Talmud Shabbat, folio 33a](https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.31a.6?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en) {cite:p}`Shabbat31a` (~0 CE Palestine)
- “So in everything, **do to others what you would have them do to you**, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
  - Jesus of Nazareth, [Matthew 7:12](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+7%3A12&version=NIV) {cite:p}`BibleGatewayPassagea` (~30 CE Palestine)
- And [many more](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule) {cite:p}`GoldenRule2023`...