Analects 14.11: 憲問 (Xian Wen)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 14 tests ethical judgment in public life. Salary, courage, accomplished speech, and a reputation for virtue each prove incomplete measures of a person. The arguments about Guan Zhong ask how benefits to many people should weigh against a demand for personal fidelity. Accounts of officeholders, messengers, and failed appeals make responsibility concrete: competent service can sustain a flawed ruler, and a duty to speak can survive refusal. Short sayings turn from judging others toward learning, ability, and the relation between words and deeds. The later encounters press the choice between persistence and withdrawal when others offer no recognition. The dialogue with Zilu gives self-cultivation an expanding aim, ending in peace for all the people; the closing scenes test conduct through bodily bearing and the desire to seem grown before the work is done.
Analects 14.11
子曰、貧而無怨、難、富而無驕、易。
The Master said, “To be poor without resentment is hard; to be rich without arrogance is easy.”
Commentary
ethics Unequal difficulties Poverty without resentment and wealth without arrogance are both valued, but the comparison does not make their difficulty equal. The harder condition is assigned to poverty. 怨 also links this saying with the restraint discussed in 14.2 and the dispossessed man’s response in 14.10.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high