Analects 9.24: 子罕 (Zi Han)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 9 presents the Master through questions about his learning, skills, character, and place in the cultural tradition. His own accounts of ordinary work and unfinished attainment stand beside his students’ admiration. Ritual decisions distinguish useful change from arrogant display, while the jade exchange joins willingness to serve with waiting for someone who recognizes worth. Images of flowing water, earthworks, growing plants, and winter trees give passing time, effort, and tested character concrete form. Praise of learners sits beside regret and warnings about unfinished growth. The later sayings ask for correction, resolve, and the ability to weigh circumstances after learning to stand firm.
Analects 9.24
子曰、主忠信、毋友不如己者、過則勿憚改。
The Master said, “Put wholeheartedness and trustworthiness first. Do not take as friends those who fall short of you. When you make a mistake, do not shrink from correcting it.”
Commentary
ethics Correction and chosen company These three instructions also close 1.8. Wholeheartedness and trustworthiness provide an ethical setting for the difficult rule about friends who fall short of oneself, although the precise measure of comparison remains unstated. The final demand to correct one’s own mistakes puts the speaker under scrutiny as well as the people they choose.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium