一孔录子曰：君子喻于义，小人喻于利。The Master said: The gentleman understands rightness; the small man understands profit.
Tap any sentence of the original to copy it with its source.
白Plain Chinese
孔子说：君子懂得的是义，小人懂得的是利。
A plain modern-Chinese rendering following Yikonglu's reading.
常The common reading
Read as “the gentleman never speaks of profit” or “the small man is simply greedy”.
注Key words in the commentary
Zhu Xi: “喻，犹晓也。义者，天理之所宜。利者，人情之所欲” — yu means to understand; rightness is what Heaven's principle finds fitting; profit is what human feeling desires.
家What other commentators say
Cheng Yi: “君子之于义，犹小人之于利也。唯其深喻，是以笃好” — the gentleman stands to rightness as the small man stands to profit; because he understands it deeply, he loves it firmly. Yang Shi: “君子有舍生而取义者，以利言之……其所喻者义而已，不知利之为利故也” — a gentleman may give up his life for rightness; put in terms of profit, what he understands is rightness alone, and he does not know profit as profit.
读How Yikonglu reads it
Both sides use the same kind of “understanding”; the difference is which thing they have understood through and through. Today: someone selling a second-hand item finds a scratch not in the listing, and changes “90% new” to “70% new” on their own.
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
“喻，曉也。”……
Compared with Zhu Xi
| Commentary | Point | Relation | Confidence | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 杨伯峻《论语译注》 | 君子小人身份 | word sense | settled | 杨明记指在位、有德或兼指不能定；朱以天理人欲区分义利取向。杨的身份疑问不宜抹成确定阶层说。 |
| 钱穆《论语新解》 | same | fairly sure | 同训喻为晓，区分君子所重义、小人所重利；钱明确拒绝把君子小人仅按社会职位作定释，朱从天理人欲说明义利。 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| “喻，犹晓也。义者，天理之所宜。利者，人情之所欲” | Zhu Xi's commentary | page 57 |
| “君子之于义，犹小人之于利也。唯其深喻，是以笃好” | Cheng Yi, quoted by Zhu Xi | page 57 |
| “君子有舍生而取义者，以利言之，则人之所欲无甚于生，所恶无甚于死，孰肯舍生而取义哉？其所喻者义而已，不知利之为利故也，小人反是” | Yang Shi, quoted by Zhu Xi | page 57 |
音Pronunciation
| Character | In the line | Read as |
|---|---|---|
| 喻 | 喻于义、深喻 | yù |
页Pages of the base edition
Yikonglu, Analects Li ren (Book 4) 4.16 “The gentleman understands rightness; the small man understands profit”, https://yikonglu.com/en/lunyu/li-ren/16.html, version 2026-11-04.Last checked: 2026-11-04. Changes are logged on theerrata page.
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