Q0365

Xunzi

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Seeing the good, be earnest to preserve it in yourself; seeing the not-good, be anxious to examine yourself.
Thinker Xunzi
School Confucianism
Source Xunzi, Cultivating Oneself
Theme Self
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Xunzi, Cultivating Oneself, within the tradition of Confucianism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of self, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Xunzi's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Xunzi. (n.d.). Seeing the good, be earnest to preserve it in yourself; seeing the not-good, be anxious to examine yourself. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0365

MLA: Xunzi. “Seeing the good, be earnest to preserve it….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0365.

Chicago: Xunzi. “Seeing the good, be earnest to preserve it….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0365.

Same thinker

More from Xunzi

  1. Indigo is taken from the indigo plant, yet is bluer than the plant; ice is made of water, yet is colder than water.
  2. Without accumulating small steps, one cannot reach a thousand li; without accumulating small streams, one cannot form rivers and seas.
  3. Learning must never stop.
  4. Human nature is bad; whatever is good about it is the product of deliberate activity (wei).
  5. The trouble with people is that they are blinkered by one corner and obscure the greater pattern.

All quotations by Xunzi

Same theme

More on self

  1. A friend is another self.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. I searched for myself.
  4. It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
  5. Claim yourself for yourself.

Browse the self theme