Analects 13.6: 子路 (Zi Lu)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 13 asks what makes government effective and what qualifies someone to serve. Leading by example, appointing capable people, setting names right, creating prosperity, and teaching all place demands on the ruler. Short claims about conduct stand beside long exchanges about speech, judgment, and the time needed for change. The book also tests uprightness, reputation, reliability, and harmony through particular relationships, sometimes leaving a difficult tension visible, as when family concealment is praised. Its closing sayings make preparation for war a responsibility toward the people who must fight.
Analects 13.6
子曰、其身正、不令而行、其身不正、雖令不從。
The Master said, “When a leader’s own conduct is upright, things go forward without orders. When their own conduct is not upright, even their orders go unfollowed.”
Commentary
politics Conduct before commands The Chinese leaves the leading person unnamed; the contrast between giving orders and being followed supplies the governing setting. 正 describes upright conduct. The same word returns in the longer question about setting oneself and others right in 13.13. Here the test is what happens before, or despite, an explicit command.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high