Analects 4.24: 里仁 (Li Ren)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 4 asks what it means to make humaneness a settled home. Love and hatred, poverty and wealth, haste and adversity test that commitment. The exemplary person’s concern with what is right is set beside the petty person’s concern with gain. Master Zeng explains the Master’s single thread as wholeheartedness and consideration for others. A cluster of sayings then places devotion to parents under the pressure of disagreement, distance, continuity, and aging. The closing sayings connect restraint in speech with action, return to the image of neighbors, and consider the cost of pressing correction on rulers and friends.
Analects 4.24
子曰、君子欲訥於言、而敏於行。
The Master said, “An exemplary person wants to be slow in speech and diligent in action.”
Commentary
philology Slow speech, diligent action 訥 suggests halting or unready speech; 敏 suggests readiness and diligence in carrying something out. The desired contrast is between words that come slowly and action carried out with care and energy. This develops the warning about conduct failing to catch up with words, and recalls the diligence and cautious speech joined in 1.14.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium