Meaning: Only insidious and cunning villains are difficult to get along with. If you get close to them, they will be rude, if you stay away from them, they will complain.

Principle: This sentence teaches us to keep a certain distance from villains so that we will not be affected by them.

From "The Analects of Confucius·Yanghuo", Chapter ***26 of this article introduces Confucius's moral education thoughts, Confucius's further explanation of benevolence, and also talks about the three-year mourning for parents. To the difference between a gentleman and a villain, etc.

Extended information

To understand this sentence, you must first understand the concept of "little man". "The Analects" appears twenty-four times in Chapter 1***23. In fact, most of these "little people" can be understood as common people or common people, which is another class compared to the adults and scholars. The word "raise" here refers to getting along with each other.

So, the full text "Only women and villains are difficult to maintain. If you are close, you will not have grandchildren, if you are far, you will resent" is about the way to get along. The general meaning is: from a male perspective , it is difficult to handle the relationship well with women; from the perspective of officials, it is difficult to handle the relationship well with ordinary people. Because if you are too close to them, they will not know humility, and if you are too distant, they will be resentful.

So we can see from this that there is a key word "raise" in Confucius's sentence. Who would raise so many concubines and servants? Of course, it is the wealthy and status scholar-bureaucrat class. This is actually the problem these people encounter. Confucius specifically refers to the "concubines" and "servants" of some scholar-bureaucrats' families, rather than referring to all women and servants in general.

Many people interpret ancient texts according to their modern literal meanings, or take them out of context in order to demonstrate their own points of view, for example: If a person does not serve himself, heaven and earth will destroy him (from "Mencius: End of the Heart"), among which The word "Wei" has two pronunciations, but the correct pronunciation is the second tone. "Wei" here is a verb. The meaning of the sentence is that if people do not cultivate their own virtues, then the laws of nature will be difficult to tolerate, and rotten wood cannot be carved. It’s not a crusade against human profit-seeking.