Source: The Analects of Confucius Yan Yuan
Original text:
Ceng Zi said: "A gentleman makes friends with words and helps others with kindness."
Translation:
Ceng Zi said: "A gentleman uses articles and knowledge to make and aggregate friends, and uses friends to help him cultivate kindness."
Extended data:
This chapter is about making friends. People think that a gentleman should maintain friendship by writing. Friends should encourage and support each other, study and ponder together, promote together and embark on the right path of life together.
Therefore, the sense of responsibility for "self" is also manifested as the sense of responsibility for "people"; The pain and sorrow of "people" is also their own pain and sorrow. Therefore, the love for people rooted in the sense of responsibility for people is naturally integrated with the infinite upward heart rooted in the sense of responsibility for themselves.
After such a process of introspection, "love" comes out of one's life, which is the true meaning of "the benevolent loves others" in The Analects of Confucius. That is, only the introspection and consciousness of "benevolent people also" can lead to the conclusion that "benevolent people love others".