Quotation
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“When I walk with two others, they can serve me as teachers. I pick out their good qualities and follow them, and their bad qualities and avoid them.”
Confucius · Confucianism · Ancient · sayings collected after 479 BCE
Part of:How to argue fairly →
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that any two companions are a curriculum: copy the good you see and treat the bad as a warning, so teaching is not confined to a master. A competing reading worries that 'bad qualities' become a licence to judge everyone you walk with, which the saying redirects into avoidance rather than scorn. It is Analects 7.22, in a book that portrays Confucius's manner. The street is enough of a school if the walker is willing to sort what they see.
Did Confucius really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Close to D. C. Lau's translation of Analects 7.22. Arthur Waley's English makes the same point: even in a company of two, there will be a teacher to copy and a warning to heed. The Analects are sayings collected later.
Where it comes from
Analects 7.22
Approximate date: sayings collected after 479 BCE.
How to use it
On a packed bus, one person gives up a seat without a speech and another spends the ride humiliating a child. Both can teach, if you are willing to copy the first and treat the second as a map of what to drop. The saying is not an invitation to narrate their faults to the carriage, and the use of the bad example is private avoidance.
A mindset reading
The habit is to leave a group of people with one thing to follow and one thing to refuse, instead of with a mood about 'people these days'. Teaching, on this line, is everywhere, which raises the standard rather than lowering it. You still have to do the sorting.
Understand the philosophy
The Master is answering where teachers are to be found. Three people walking, himself and two others, already contain models. The good is for imitation and the bad is for self-correction, the same structure as the mirror saying in Book 4. The key move is that the unworthy companion still serves; Confucian learning assumes exemplars in ordinary company, not only in a school.
- knowledge
- virtue
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that any two companions are a curriculum: copy the good you see and treat the bad as a warning, so teaching is not confined to a master. A competing reading worries that 'bad qualities' become a licence to judge everyone you walk with, which the saying redirects into avoidance rather than scorn. It is Analects 7.22, in a book that portrays Confucius's manner. The street is enough of a school if the walker is willing to sort what they see.
Did Confucius really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Close to D. C. Lau's translation of Analects 7.22. Arthur Waley's English makes the same point: even in a company of two, there will be a teacher to copy and a warning to heed. The Analects are sayings collected later.
Which work is it in?
Analects 7.22 Approximate date: sayings collected after 479 BCE.