Confucius said, "A gentleman is righteous, but a villain is profitable." ("The Analects of Confucius")

translate

Confucius said, "A gentleman knows the righteousness, but a villain only knows the small profits."

Comment and analysis

"Gentleman's righteousness, villain's benefit" is a legendary sentence that has great influence on later generations in Confucius' theory. This obviously raises the question of justice and interests. Confucius believed that profit should obey righteousness, and righteousness should be more important than profit. What he means is to abide by the morality of hierarchical order and blindly pursue personal interests, which will make mistakes and destroy hierarchical order. Therefore, people who pursue personal interests are regarded as villains. After the development of Confucianism in later generations, this thought has become a sharp opposition between righteousness and benefit, either one or the other.