Analects 7.36: 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 7.36
子曰、君子坦蕩蕩、小人長戚戚。
The Master said, “The exemplary person is open and at ease; the petty person is always anxious.”
Commentary
ethics An open disposition 坦蕩蕩 gives the exemplary person a sense of breadth and ease, against the petty person’s continuing distress in 長戚戚. The contrast concerns a habitual disposition. Elsewhere in this book the Master acknowledges worries and exercises caution, so openness can coexist with attention to what might go wrong.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium