It means: if the people are rich, you will not be rich; if the people cannot be rich, you will not be truly rich.

Source: "The Analects of Confucius·Yan Yuan" by Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Period

Original text: Duke Ai asked Yu Youruo: "I am hungry in the year and I don't have enough resources. What should I do?" Youruo replied: " "Is it thorough?" He said, "Secondly, I am still insufficient. How can I be thorough?" He said to me, "If the people are sufficient, who is insufficient?"

Translation :

Gong Ai of Lu asked Youruo, "What should we do if the country suffers from famine and it is difficult to spend money?" Youruo replied, "Why don't you implement strict laws and only collect one-tenth of the land tax?" "What?" Ai Gong said: "I am not enough to draw two tenths. How can I implement the law?" Youruo said: "If the people's money is enough, how can you not be enough?" , how can you have enough?"

Extended information:

Creation background:

"The Analects" was written during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. He was a student of Confucius. and the re-transmission of records by students. By the Han Dynasty, there were three versions of the Analects circulating: "The Analects of Lu" (20 chapters), "The Analects of Qi" (22 chapters), and "The Analects of Ancient Chinese" (21 chapters). At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zheng Xuan used the Analects of Lu as the base, compiled a new version with reference to the Analects of Qi and the Analects of Ancient Chinese, and added annotations.

After Zheng Xuan’s annotated version was circulated, the Analects of Qi and the Analects of Ancient Chinese were gradually lost. The main versions of the annotations of "The Analects" in subsequent dynasties are: "The Analects of Confucius" by He Yan in the Three Kingdoms period, "The Analects of Confucius" by Huang Kan of the Liang Dynasty in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, "Analects of Confucius" by Xing Yan in the Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi's "Analects of Confucius" in the Qing Dynasty Liu Baonan's "The Analects of Confucius" and so on.

The Analects of Confucius involves many aspects such as philosophy, politics, economics, education, literature and art, etc. It is very rich in content and is the most important classic of Confucianism. In terms of expression, the language of "The Analects" is concise and vivid, making it a model of quotation-style prose. In terms of arrangement, "The Analects" does not have a strict compilation style. Each article is a chapter, and chapters are collected into chapters. There is no close connection between chapters and chapters, but they are roughly classified, and there are repeated chapters.