Give Up Life and Take Righteousness

answered by Mencius, Gaozi I

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🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

dir. Fred Zinnemann · UK

When power demands an oath against one's conscience, keeping your life means bending your will, and keeping your will means staking your life. When even holding out in silence reaches its limit, for what does a person choose something heavier than life itself?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

To keep life and comfort, do I too easily place beneath the scale what should weigh heavier than life?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

舍生取義

生亦我所欲也義亦我所欲也二者不可得兼舍生而取義者也

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

Life I desire, and righteousness I desire; if I cannot have both, I will give up life and take righteousness.

💡 TL;DR

Mencius desired both life and righteousness, yet said that when he could not have both, he would take righteousness.

📝The Classic Answers

Mencius desired both life and righteousness, yet said that when he could not have both, he would take righteousness. This is not a making-light of death but a scale that knows something weighs more than life. When power demands an oath against conscience, bending the will keeps one's life but loses one's self. Even holding out in silence has its limit. Where life and righteousness climb onto one scale, I choose to ask myself honestly which truly weighs more.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If a moment tempts you to bend your will for comfort today, set will and comfort on one scale and weigh which is heavier.

📖 Classic Source: Mencius, Gaozi I. Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.