一孔录子曰：事君尽礼，人以为谄也。The Master said: Serving one's lord with full ritual, people take it for flattery.
Tap any sentence of the original to copy it with its source.
常The common reading
Do the courtesies in full and you get called a sycophant.
注Key words in the commentary
Huang Zushun: “孔子于事君之礼，非有所加也，如是而后尽尔。时人不能，反以为谄” — Confucius added nothing to the ritual of serving his lord; that was simply doing it fully; people of the time could not, and called it flattery; “以明礼之当然也” — this shows what ritual properly requires.
家What other commentators say
Cheng Yi: “若他人言之，必曰：我事君尽礼，小人以为谄。而孔子之言止于如此。圣人道大德宏，此亦可见” — anyone else would have said “petty men call it flattery”; Confucius stopped at “people”; the sage's breadth shows here too.
读How Yikonglu reads it
Not a bit extra — ritual simply requires this; Confucius says only “people take it for flattery”, with no insult back. Today: getting to the meeting early and filling in expense forms fully, and being mocked as a try-hard.
核Check every citation
Every commentary line quoted in the video: the original wording, who said it, and the page in the base edition. “Paraphrase” marks our summary, not the commentator's words. About this edition
| Quoted text | Source | Page |
|---|---|---|
| “孔子于事君之礼，非有所加也，如是而后尽尔。时人不能，反以为谄。故孔子言之，以明礼之当然也” | 朱注引黄氏（黄祖舜） | page 46 |
| “圣人事君尽礼，当时以为谄。若他人言之，必曰我事君尽礼，小人以为谄。而孔子之言止于如此。圣人道大德宏，此亦可见” | 朱注引程子（程颐） | page 46 |
音Pronunciation
| Character | In the line | Read as |
|---|---|---|
| 谄 | 人以为谄 | chǎn |
| 尽 | 事君尽礼 | jìn |
页Pages of the base edition
Yikonglu, Analects Ba yi (Book 3) 3.18 “Serving one's lord with full ritual”, https://yikonglu.com/en/lunyu/ba-yi/18.html, version 2026-11-04.Last checked: 2026-11-04. Changes are logged on theerrata page.
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