Original sentence:
Confucius said: "In a threesome, there must be a teacher. Choose good and follow it, but change it if it is not good. "
Translation:
Confucius said, "When three people walk together, one of them must be a teacher worthy of my study." I choose his advantages and study. If I find his shortcomings, I will take them as a warning and correct them. "
Source: The Analects of Confucius.
Text interpretation
This is what Confucius said about learning. In Confucius' view, there must be something worth learning when several people are together. So we should choose those advantages to study, find out the shortcomings and correct them, so as to improve our level. This also shows that when learning from an inexperienced teacher, we should discover the strengths of others at any time and place, and make up for our own shortcomings with the strengths of others.
Learning from others with an open mind is very valuable. More importantly, we should not only learn from others' good points, but also learn from others' shortcomings. This is an ordinary and great truth. This has also become an old saying that later generations have always adhered to.
Confucius, whose name was Zhong Ni, was born in Song Dynasty (now Xiayi, Henan Province) and Lu State (now Qufu, Shandong Province). He was a famous thinker, educator and founder of Confucianism in ancient China, and was later honored as a sage, sage and teacher of Confucius, ranking first among the "Top Ten Cultural Celebrities in the World".
He created an atmosphere of private lectures. Confucius was employed by Laozi and led some disciples around the world for fourteen years. In his later years, he revised the six classics of Poetry, Calligraphy, Rites and Music, Yi Zhuan and Chunqiu. After the death of Confucius, later generations recorded the words and deeds and thoughts of Confucius and his disciples and compiled the Confucian classic The Analects.