一孔录子曰：人之生也直，罔之生也幸而免。The Master said: Man lives by uprightness; the crooked live only by luck, having escaped.
Tap any sentence of the original to copy it with its source.
白Plain Chinese
孔子说：人生来本是正直的；不正直的人也能活着，只是侥幸躲过了灾祸。
A plain modern-Chinese rendering following Yikonglu's reading.
常The common reading
People who are not upright still seem to live just fine, don't they?
注Key words in the commentary
“罔” — crooked, not upright.
家What other commentators say
Master Cheng: “生理本直。罔，不直也，而亦生者，幸而免尔” — the principle of life is upright by nature. “Wang” means not upright; that such people also live is only because they have luckily escaped.
读How Yikonglu reads it
People are meant to live upright; the crooked are alive too, not because they deserve it but because they have got away with it by luck.
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 · 1750 Japanese woodblock edition · juan 三
“云人生也直者，言人得全生居世者，必由有直行，故云人之生也直也。”……
Compared with Zhu Xi
| Commentary | Point | Relation | Confidence | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 钱穆《论语新解》 | same | fairly sure | 同训罔为不直、得生为侥幸免祸。钱从人群赖直道而存说明不直者赖他人之直生存；朱引程子说生理本直。 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| “程子曰：生理本直……幸而免尔” | Cheng Yi, quoted by Zhu Xi | page 85 |
音Pronunciation
| Character | In the line | Read as |
|---|---|---|
| 罔 | 罔之生也、罔，不直也 | wǎng |
页Pages of the base edition
Yikonglu, Analects 雍也第六 6.17 “Don't crooked people live perfectly well too?”, https://yikonglu.com/en/lunyu/yong-ye/17.html, version 2026-11-06.Last checked: 2026-11-06. Changes are logged on theerrata page.
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