一孔录子曰：见贤思齐焉，见不贤而内自省也。The Master said: Seeing a worthy person, think of equalling him; seeing an unworthy one, turn inward and examine yourself.
Tap any sentence of the original to copy it with its source.
白Plain Chinese
孔子说：看见贤人，就想向他看齐；看见不贤的人，就在心里反省自己。
A plain modern-Chinese rendering following Yikonglu's reading.
常The common reading
Read as “learn from role models”, with the weight falling on the other person.
注Key words in the commentary
Xing (省) read xǐng, to examine. Zhu Xi: “思齐者，冀己亦有是善；内自省者，恐己亦有是恶” — to think of equalling is to hope one also has that good; to examine inward is to fear one also has that fault.
家What other commentators say
Hu Yin: “见人之善恶不同，而无不反诸身者，则不徒羡人而甘自弃，不徒责人而忘自责矣” — if, seeing good and bad in others, one always turns it back on oneself, one will not merely envy others and give oneself up, nor merely blame others and forget to blame oneself.
读How Yikonglu reads it
The people one sees are good and bad; each time, fold it back onto oneself. Today: scrolling past a peer's fine work, one person sneers “just luck”, another quietly saves the tutorial.
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
“云見賢思齊焉者，言人若見賢者，當自思願修礪與之齊等也。”……
Compared with Zhu Xi
| Commentary | Point | Relation | Confidence | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 杨伯峻《论语译注》 | same | fairly sure | 见贤思齐、见不贤反省自身；朱补两者皆反诸身，杨译未转成专责他人。 | |
| 钱穆《论语新解》 | same | fairly sure | 同解见贤求有其善、见不贤自省有无其恶；钱将此推及读书见古人，朱所引胡氏亦重反诸己而非徒羡徒责。 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| “思齐者，冀己亦有是善；内自省者，恐己亦有是恶” | Zhu Xi's commentary | page 57 |
| “见人之善恶不同，而无不反诸身者，则不徒羡人而甘自弃，不徒责人而忘自责矣” | 朱注引胡氏 | page 57 |
音Pronunciation
| Character | In the line | Read as |
|---|---|---|
| 省 | 内自省、定省 | xǐng |
页Pages of the base edition
Yikonglu, Analects Li ren (Book 4) 4.17 “Seeing a worthy, think of equalling him; seeing an unworthy, look inward”, https://yikonglu.com/en/lunyu/li-ren/17.html, version 2026-11-04.Last checked: 2026-11-04. Changes are logged on theerrata page.
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