述而不作 Book 7 of the Analects opens with Confucius saying: shu er bu zuo, xin er hao gu. “I transmit and do not create. I trust and love the ancients.” He compared himself to Old Peng, a figure whose identity scholars still dispute.
The Song philosopher Zhu Xi explained that Confucius passed on the old ways of the former kings and never created anything of his own. Even so, Zhu Xi wrote, the merit of this transmission was double that of creation.