君子不重则不威章

Original text

子曰：“君子不重则不威。学则不固。主忠信。无友不如己者。过则勿惮改。”

Translation

Confucius said, "A noble will lose stateliness and honor if he or she fails to keep sober. Study saves one out from ignorance. Loyalty and faith-keeping should be one’s dominant action principle. Never make friends with the ones who do not deserve you in all aspects. Don’t be afraid to rectify a mistake after making it."

Annotation from research

The Confucians do care about the social part much more than the technical part about one’s personal success. Becoming a noble is the ideal of all Confucians. However, this identity is not tenured. One must sustain his behavior lifetime to keep it. In Chinese there is an idiom “only when the cover of one’s coffin is shut can the final judgment of him or her be made.” Here Confucius pointed out the importance of bearing which a noble must maintain in the first sentence of this verse. In a Confucian view, only uneducated ones would set no constraint for his or her public behavior, and thus lose the opportunity to win a noble’s name. Also, just as in a Platonic world, the philosophers rule. In a Confucian world, the rulers are the noble. And not to lose honor from the people, one must keep good bearing and be sober so as to approach a long-term respect, which is a basic part of the Chinese politics. Even nowadays, the Chinese governors almost never even smile in public, let alone attend TV shows to expose their personal lives. That is a result of the Confucian education after all.

It is easy to understand why study saves one out from ignorance. And the necessity of loyalty and faithfulness is also a common sense. Last but not least, ability to correct mistakes timely can be accepted by the most, too. The only thing to remember is that self-motivation, loyalty, faithfulness and courage to admit and rectify the mistake are lifetime requirements for the noble. They are hard to carry out lifetime, aren’t they!

The only confusing sentence is about making friends. So, who can determine one is inferior to another? And did Confucius mean we should only make friend with the outstanding ones? If so, wouldn’t the outstanding ones deny our requests for the same reason? Nevertheless, the original idea of Confucius turned out to be encouraging everybody to make friends with others from whom you have something to learn, and thus advance. He pointed out that if one never learns from his friends, and only develops friendship which brings him or her no benevolent progress, that does him or her no good. Confucius did not agree that as Western saying goes, friend is thief of time, but he did not agree the time should be wasted either. As a matter of fact, everybody has some advantages worth learning from. Confucius was an advocator for studying from friends, rather than just making friends for fun.