The Greek thinker Socrates was eighty years younger than the Chinese philosopher Confucius, but nevertheless they belonged to the same era, which is commonly called the “axial time”: the time of searching for the meaning of life, the emergence of new ideas about justice, truth and salvation. They were both teachers, both taught their contemporaries to pay attention not to the particulars of life, but to general ideas and rules, did not impose their opinions, trying to awaken their own in a person. At the same time, Confucius and Socrates followed different paths: the first looked back at history and wanted to see harmony in everything, so characteristic of the Chinese mentality, and the second looked for truth in logic and correctness of judgment. The book of Confucius: compilation and foreword by Vladimir Malyavin; translation from Chinese by P. Popov, V. Malyavin, I. Kanaev; comments by V. Malyavin, E. Yamburg, I. KanaevThe Book of Socrates: compilation, preface, comments by Alexander Markov, translation from Greek by M. Solovyov, V. Karpov, S. Sobolevsky