The biggest feature of these famous sayings is that they highly summarize the most valuable experiences in life and express them in the most understandable language, which makes people understand at a glance and wake up instantly.

Perhaps because of this, sages or great virtues throughout the ages have all kinds of family instructions for future generations to refer to or take as a warning, and finally achieve the fundamental goal of "keeping the family together."

Therefore, the real source of the so-called famous sayings is only a kind of family instruction or teacher training, such as The Analects of Confucius, which is actually the biggest teacher training in China. This teacher's instruction is a record of Confucius' words and deeds recorded by Confucius disciples. Coincidentally, the words and deeds of Sakyamuni, an ancient Indian sage, were also recorded by disciples as scriptures, that is, Buddhist scriptures, for later Buddhist disciples to practice. Su Ge, a saint in the west, was known to later generations after his student Plato reinterpreted his words and deeds.

So from a certain point of view, the essence of famous sayings is actually an education, an education for future generations by saints, such as the Analects of Confucius, Confucius once said:

"The color of a gentleman is not lewd, but love is based on courtesy."

According to his old man's house, even gentlemen are no exception. In other words, it is inevitable that people are lascivious, and ancient sages and sages can't avoid customs. Only for gentlemen, lewdness pays more attention to the distinction between elegance and vulgarity, and pays attention to principles and scales. In other words, a gentleman is also a human being and has lewd habits or needs. But compared with ordinary people, they know how to use etiquette to restrain their behavior and not to be "slutty".

Therefore, the so-called color without sex contains at least three meanings, namely:

First, lewdness belongs to human nature, not a crime.

Confucius said "lust is not lewd", but he did not deny that "lewdness" is human nature or nature. In other words, whether you are a gentleman, a saint or a villain, you all have the need for "lewdness". In other words, as long as you are a normal person, you will have the impulse of "lewdness", and lewdness itself will not change because of your identity.

Furthermore, "obscenity" itself is not evil, and the real evil is the human heart, not "obscenity" itself. This truth was summed up by the ancients thousands of years ago.

What's more, "lust" has another meaning, that is, the love of beauty, that is, people's pursuit of beautiful things. So "lust" is understandable to many people. We can try to imagine, if people don't pursue beautiful things, or don't pay attention to beautiful things, or even women don't wear makeup, will the world become better?

The answer is of course not.

Therefore, from this perspective, there is no guilt in lewdness itself.

Second, the scale of lewdness: not lewd.

The so-called lewdness refers to excesses, and "no lewdness" emphasizes nothing too much.

Therefore, lewdness itself is not good or bad, and so is everything else. Once excessive, it is easy to deteriorate.

Therefore, the ancients thought that although "obscenity" was not worth advocating, it should not artificially suppress nature, but should master a degree, which is "non-obscenity".

Because once the "lust" is excessive, it will not only affect itself, but also harm the interests of others. What's more, uncontrollable desires will only lead to greater desires and eventually get out of hand.

From this perspective, it is very necessary to control the scale, that is, "no whoring", whether it is a gentleman or a villain.

Third, the means to control "lust": politeness

As we all know, Confucianism pays attention to etiquette, that is, cultivating self-cultivation, governing the country by the family, and even leveling the world with courtesy.

The reason why Confucius said: stop at ceremony, emphasizing that gentlemen need to control all kinds of desires through "ceremony" in order to achieve the purpose of self-cultivation In other words, a gentleman's lust is not forbidden, but needs to conform to the etiquette acceptable to the world and cannot go beyond the scope of etiquette.

Therefore, ceremony is actually a means to control "obscenity".

Therefore, Confucius said that "a gentleman does not commit adultery" has at least the above three meanings, and of course it is also a measure of a gentleman's lewdness.

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The material of this article is mainly quoted from The Analects of Confucius.