What is the first thing you want to learn?

Its idea is: learning is fun, so that people don't worry about it, which embodies Confucius' idea of "learning without being tired, teaching without being tired, paying attention to self-cultivation and being strict with self-discipline".

Original text:

Confucius said, "It's better to keep pace with the times, isn't it? Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters? People don't know, but they don't care Isn't it a gentleman? "

Translation:

Confucius said, "Isn't it a pleasure to learn from the times?" Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters? People don't know me, but I'm not angry. Isn't that a man of moral cultivation? "

Source: The Analects of Confucius and its disciples in the Warring States Period.

Extended data:

Creation background

The Analects of Confucius was written in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and was recorded by Confucius' students and their retranslators. By the Han Dynasty, there were three editions of The Analects of Confucius (20), The Analects of Confucius (22) and The Analects of Classical Chinese (2 1). At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zheng Xuan compiled and annotated a new book based on The Analects of Lu with reference to The Analects of Qi and The Analects of Ancient Chinese.

These three sentences in this chapter are familiar to everyone. The traditional explanation is: often review exercises after learning, are you unhappy, and so on. Three sentences, one meaning, and there is no coherence before and after the sentence. However, some people think that this explanation is not in line with the original intention, pointing out that "learning" here does not refer to learning, but to theories or propositions; "Time" can't be interpreted as always, but the meaning of the times or society. "Learning" is not reviewing, but applying, which means adopting.

And these three sentences are not isolated, but coherent. These three sentences mean: if your own theory is adopted by society, you will be very happy; To say the least, if it is not adopted by the society, but many friends agree with my theory, I am also willing to come here to discuss the problem; To say the least, even if society doesn't adopt it and people don't understand me, I don't resent it. Isn't this a gentleman? This explanation can be self-explanatory, and there is also some truth for readers to refer to when understanding the contents of this chapter.