"A gentleman makes friends with literature and helps others with benevolence" means that noble people make friends with literature and help others with righteousness.

Source:

1, "The Analects of Confucius Yan Yuan": "Zeng Zi said: A gentleman takes literature as his friend and benevolence as his help."

2. Ming Ke Danqiu's Chai Jingji II: "The Japanese government will try it tomorrow, and we will each talk about this classic. A gentleman gives lectures and makes friends by writing. Why not? "

Making friends through writing is making friends. Although "Wen" is as light as water, it can meet articles and knowledge and communicate with like-minded people, but it can be "light and close". Accordingly, if wine and meat make friends and interests intersect, there will be no friendship. Helping friends is the purpose of making friends.

Ceng Zi does not deny that the purpose of making friends is to "help benevolence", that is, to promote the improvement of virtue, not to obtain some material benefits. Combining making friends with learning to cultivate one's morality, as a way of learning to cultivate one's morality, still has reference significance today.