Book 12: 《顏淵》 Yan Yuan
《顏淵》 Passage 12.16
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "The superior man seeks to perfect the admirable qualities of men, and does not seek to perfect their bad qualities. The mean man does the opposite of this."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master; title of respect for a teacher, here Confucius
- 曰 to say, said (introduces a quotation)
- 君子 jūn zǐ
exemplary person, gentleman
- 君 lord, ruler; 君子 is literally a lord's son
- 子 son; 君子 is literally a lord's son, one of the ruling class, which the Analects makes a term of character
- 成 chéng
to bring to completion, help realize, bring out (a quality)
- 人 rén
other people, others
- 之 zhī
possessive/genitive particle: 's, their, of
- 美 měi
good qualities, excellence, what is admirable
- 不 bù
not
- 成 chéng
to bring to completion, help realize, bring out (a quality)
- 人 rén
other people, others
- 之 zhī
possessive/genitive particle: 's, their, of
- 惡 è
bad qualities, faults
read è, 'bad, evil', not wù, 'to hate, dislike'
- 小人 xiǎo rén
petty person, small-minded person
- 小 small, petty, small-minded
- 人 person
- 反是 fǎn shì
to do the opposite, be contrary to this
- 反 to reverse, be contrary, opposite
- 是 this, that; demonstrative pronoun referring to what precedes
Roberts recasts the clause as a positive parallel ('brings out the worst') rather than lexicalizing 'opposite'
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