Analects 7.21: 述而 (Shu Er)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 7 builds a portrait of the Master through self-descriptions, conversations, and observations of his conduct. He loves the ancient tradition, learns through sustained attention, and teaches by asking learners to carry an indication further. Music, mourning, plain food, and illness show how these commitments enter daily life. Political judgment calls for knowing when to act or withdraw and for accepting criticism. Repeated disclaimers about his own attainment sit beside confidence in Heaven and the nearness of humaneness. The closing portrait holds warmth, firmness, respect, and ease together.
Analects 7.21
子曰、三人行、必有我師焉、擇其善者而從之、其不善者而改之。
The Master said, “When three of us walk together, I am sure to find a teacher among them. I choose what is good in them and follow it; what is bad in them, I correct in myself.”
Commentary
ethics Learning through both good and bad examples The learner chooses good qualities to follow and uses bad ones as an occasion for correction. “In myself” supplies the understood direction of 改: the correction concerns the learner’s own conduct. The sure promise of a teacher rests on this active use of what one encounters.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium