Quotation
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“Repay injury with uprightness, and repay kindness with kindness.”
Confucius · Confucianism · Ancient · sayings collected after 479 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a refusal of the prettier policy: injury is not owed kindness, it is owed uprightness, while kindness is owed kindness. A competing reading notes that 'uprightness' is disputed, and can mean impartial justice rather than personal payback, so the line is not a simple endorsement of revenge. The saying is Analects 14.34, a correction of another speaker. It is easy to confuse with later proverbs about digging two graves, which are not this text.
Did Confucius really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Close to D. C. Lau's translation of Analects 14.34. Someone proposes repaying injury with kindness; Confucius answers with uprightness instead. Arthur Waley makes the same contrast. The Analects are a compilation.
Where it comes from
Analects 14.34
Approximate date: sayings collected after 479 BCE.
How to use it
A neighbour who damages the fence is not, on this answer, owed a pretend warmth, and a neighbour who helped when the boiler failed is not owed a mere official fairness. Uprightness might be a clear repair and a straight word. Kindness returned is something warmer, and mixing the two replies up is how people become either doormats or score-settlers, and he wants the replies distinguished.
A mindset reading
The habit is to match the reply to what was done, and to ask what uprightness requires before you call it kindness or revenge. The saying blocks two slogans at once: always hit back, and always be sweet. Neither is the Analects.
Understand the philosophy
Confucius is answering a proposal to repay injury with kindness, which he treats as undiscriminating. Uprightness, zhi, is straightness or integrity, the quality that deals with injury without twisting into either spite or flattery. Kindness, de in this exchange, answers kindness. The key point is the difference of replies, and graded response is the Confucian habit Mozi will call partiality.
- justice
- ethics
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a refusal of the prettier policy: injury is not owed kindness, it is owed uprightness, while kindness is owed kindness. A competing reading notes that 'uprightness' is disputed, and can mean impartial justice rather than personal payback, so the line is not a simple endorsement of revenge. The saying is Analects 14.34, a correction of another speaker. It is easy to confuse with later proverbs about digging two graves, which are not this text.
Did Confucius really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Close to D. C. Lau's translation of Analects 14.34. Someone proposes repaying injury with kindness; Confucius answers with uprightness instead. Arthur Waley makes the same contrast. The Analects are a compilation.
Which work is it in?
Analects 14.34 Approximate date: sayings collected after 479 BCE.