一孔录子曰：唯仁者能好人，能恶人。The Master said: Only the humane can love others and can hate others.
Tap any sentence of the original to copy it with its source.
白Plain Chinese
孔子说：只有仁人，才能够真正喜爱人，也才能够真正厌恶人。
A plain modern-Chinese rendering following Yikonglu's reading.
常The common reading
The humane have strong likes and dislikes (with the stress on “daring to hate”).
注Key words in the commentary
hao (love) and wu (hate) in the departing tone; “唯之为言独也” — “only” means alone; “盖无私心，然后好恶当于理，程子所谓得其公正是也” — only without selfish attachment do likes and dislikes accord with principle — what Cheng Yi called being impartial and right.
家What other commentators say
You Zuo: “好善而恶恶，天下之同情，然人每失其正者，心有所系而不能自克也。惟仁者无私心，所以能好恶也” — loving good and hating bad is common to everyone, yet people often lose rightness because the heart is tied to something and cannot master itself; only the humane, free of selfishness, can truly love and hate.
读How Yikonglu reads it
Everyone can like and dislike; the “can” lies in doing it rightly, which requires a heart that is not tied to anything. Today: a competition judge who sees a former student take the stage stands up, leaves the panel and gives no score for that round.
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
“夫仁人不佞，故能言人之好惡，是能好人能惡人也。”……
Compared with Zhu Xi
| Commentary | Point | Relation | Confidence | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 杨伯峻《论语译注》 | same | settled | 仁者好恶得当；杨引得其中，朱以无私、公正说明，非仁者只爱人而不恶人。 | |
| 钱穆《论语新解》 | same | fairly sure | 同以无私欲则好恶得正。钱展开私欲使好恶不能真及其社会影响，朱以无私心好恶当理、公正概括。 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| “唯之为言独也。盖无私心，然后好恶当于理，程子所谓得其公正是也” | Zhu Xi's commentary | page 51 |
| “好善而恶恶，天下之同情，然人每失其正者，心有所系而不能自克也。惟仁者无私心，所以能好恶也” | You Zuo, quoted by Zhu Xi | page 51 |
音Pronunciation
| Character | In the line | Read as |
|---|---|---|
| 好 | 能好人、好恶、好善、深知笃好 | hào |
| 恶 | 能恶人、好恶 | wù |
页Pages of the base edition
Yikonglu, Analects Li ren (Book 4) 4.3 “Only the humane can love and hate others”, https://yikonglu.com/en/lunyu/li-ren/3.html, version 2026-11-04.Last checked: 2026-11-04. Changes are logged on theerrata page.
Found an error in this chapter? Email us; once checked, it goes on the errata page under your username: 
