Analects 15.20: 衛靈公 (Wei Ling Gong)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 15 tests exemplary conduct under pressure: hunger, going unrecognized, bad government, and the pull of clever speech. Its sayings ask how learning becomes judgment, how humaneness directs action, and how ritual gives that action form. The portraits of unwavering straightness and timely withdrawal leave room for different responses to public disorder. Praise must answer to examination, and responsibility repeatedly returns to oneself. Short assurances sit beside difficult tensions about reputation and the cost of humaneness. The book closes with the Master guiding a visitor through a room, giving the call for consideration a precise human setting.
Analects 15.20
子曰、君子求諸己、小人求諸人。
The Master said, “An exemplary person looks to themselves; a petty person looks to others.”
Commentary
philology Where one looks 求 can mean seeking something or making a demand. The object is unexpressed, while the contrast between oneself and others is exact. “Looks to” preserves that range: the saying can concern where one seeks a standard, an explanation, or the effort needed to act. It directs responsibility inward without explaining every kind of help one may seek.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium