一孔录子曰：里仁为美。择不处仁，焉得知？The Master said: It is beautiful to live where humaneness prevails. If one chooses not to dwell among the humane, how can one be called wise?
Tap any sentence of the original to copy it with its source.
白Plain Chinese
孔子说：居住在有仁德风气的地方才好。选择住处，却不选有仁德的地方，怎么能算聪明呢？
A plain modern-Chinese rendering following Yikonglu's reading.
常The common reading
The old saying about choosing your neighbours — picking your surroundings like Mencius's mother moving house three times.
注Key words in the commentary
“处”上声 — chu (dwell) in the rising tone; “知”去声 — zhi read as “wise”; “里有仁厚之俗为美” — a neighbourhood with humane customs is beautiful; “择里而不居于是焉，则失其是非之本心，而不得为知矣” — to choose a neighbourhood and not settle among such people is to lose one's original sense of right and wrong, and one cannot be called wise.
家What other commentators say
Zhu Xi's note gives only one reading and cites no one else.
读How Yikonglu reads it
Choose the wrong place to live and what you lose is not the house but the heart that tells right from wrong. Today: when buying a flat people ask about schools, the metro and sunlight, and rarely about how the neighbours treat one another.
家Other commentaries
Our base text is Zhu Xi's Collected Commentaries (above). Here are other commentaries side by side: for old commentaries, the first line of the sub-commentary with a link to the woodblock scan; for modern editions, one short quoted translation for comparison. The “compared with Zhu Xi” notes are written by Yikonglu, not quoted.
皇侃《论语义疏》Liang dynasty · Zhibuzu Zhai edition · juan 二
“云里仁為美者，里者，民之所居處也。”……
Compared with Zhu Xi
| Commentary | Point | Relation | Confidence | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 钱穆《论语新解》 | 里 | differs | fairly sure | 钱取居于仁道，不取择居仁厚里邑；朱以选择仁厚风俗之里为解。 |
| 杨伯峻《论语译注》 | 里 | word sense | settled | 杨容许作居住的动词，并保留择居择业等范围未定；朱实指选择仁厚里俗居住。不可把杨说定为择邻一解。 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| “里有仁厚之俗为美。择里而不居于是焉，则失其是非之本心，而不得为知矣” | Zhu Xi's commentary | page 51 |
音Pronunciation
| Character | In the line | Read as |
|---|---|---|
| 处 | 择不处仁、久处约、长处乐 | chǔ |
| 焉 | 焉得知 | yān |
| 知 | 焉得知、知者利仁、不得为知 | zhì |
页Pages of the base edition
Yikonglu, Analects Li ren (Book 4) 4.1 “Living among the humane is beautiful”, https://yikonglu.com/en/lunyu/li-ren/1.html, version 2026-11-04.Last checked: 2026-11-04. Changes are logged on theerrata page.
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