A lifetime of learning according to Confucius

A quotation from Confucius’s Analects that I saw on my daughter’s TV show nihongo de asobo on NHK. I knew just enough Japanese to recognize the passage, and felt like posting it here:

The Master said, At age fifteen I set my mind on learning; by thirty I had my footing; at forty I was free of perplexities; by fifty I understood the will of Heaven;¹ by sixty I learned to give ear to others; by seventy I could follow my heart’s desire without overstepping the line.
(Book 2, verse 4, trans. Burton Watson)

I hope my life will turn out the same.

P.S. Haven’t had a good quote on Confucius in a while, thought “why not?”.

¹ The notion of Heaven （天 tiān in Mandarin) in Chinese beliefs has very little resemblance to anything in Western culture. It’s more like the universal order of the gods and other divine spirits where everything is in perfect harmony, everyone knows their place in celestial hierarchy and so on. It stands in contrast to life here on Earth, in other words.