"Have no friends not equal to yourself"

[intjguy]

"Have no friends not equal to yourself."

A quote by Confucius,

One thing I regret is not having the backbone to refuse wasting my time with certain people in my preteens.

I easily wasted 4-5 years of my life doing this. A time I could've grown and become 5x more powerful than I am now.


Is this how you would interpret the quote? Many others beg to differ that the quote means something else.

EDIT:
Come to think of it, I only blame myself for have wasted 4 years of my life. Which is little enough for me to realize at an early enough age, that it all was fuckin' worth it

[Begoner]

I think it means that you should clone yourself and befriend only your clones.

[woofwoofl]

No one is equal to anyone, not even themself at any other given point in time - poor Confucius must have been a lonely guy

And yep - time spent learning is never time wasted - those lessons that are rough to learn are also rough to forget!

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

Conny would never say that.I strongly believe that he suggests not to think of yourself more highly than others or something.Of course,if you live in unity everyone is your friend,so there you go.

[Creepy-bg]

"Have no friends not equal to yourself."

A quote by Confucius,

One thing I regret is not having the backbone to refuse wasting my time with certain people in my preteens.

I easily wasted 4-5 years of my life doing this. A time I could've grown and become 5x more powerful than I am now.


Is this how you would interpret the quote? Many others beg to differ that the quote means something else.

EDIT:
Come to think of it, I only blame myself for have wasted 4 years of my life. Which is little enough for me to realize at an early enough age, that it all was fuckin' worth it

it it makes you feel any better, those same people didn't have the backbone to stop wasting their time on you, too.

[marooned]

I could see getting in with the wrong crowd... like people who hang out with friends who are always up to doing something illegal and so they just land themselves in jail over and over because they can't break away from these bad influences who aren't going to change (works with drugs too). And I suppose people can waste their time hanging out with people they don't really like just to have someone to hang out with, or endure conversations they find boring but for some reason won't/can't do anything about.

From this page (1-8) http://www.wright-house.com/religion.../Analects.html, I got the feeling the quote probably means something closer to what timewu said, perhaps concerning holding faithfulness/sincerity as first principles and not treating others like one is "better than them" in the sense of being worth more as a life form or something. But I don't know if I agree or not other than I can't really be all "I'm so much cooler than you and generally worth more" to a friend if I'm being a faithful & sincere friend because the two don't work together.

[Crispy]

In his youth (the LII) often tends to a cheerful lifestyle with many friends, games of chance, booze. Later he comes to the conclusion that all those things are something other than what he really needs.

[Azeroffs]

It's such a vague statement... Equal in what way? I'm sure you could interpret in all different ways.

I'm inclined to agree with woofwoofl. In the general sense no two people are truly equal, or all people are equal depending on the perspective. People aren't equal in the sense that any two persons have many differences to the point of them being incomparable. People are all equal in the sense that they are all human. It's the same as uniqueness.

[intjguy]

Perhaps it means, if you feel lowlier or higher than others, you're better off alone?

That's the only other side, I think.

[intjguy]

I think it means that you should clone yourself and befriend only your clones.

That made me crack the hell up.

[DirectorAbbie]

That made me crack the hell up.

[Korpsy Knievel]

Considering Br'er Confucius's overweening concern with rectitude and moral living, I think he's cautioning against association with unsavory people. The phrase is akin to "Lie down with dogs and wake up with fleas."

[stray]

You could've been more "powerful" maybe, but you're wiser for learning the hard way too. Your experience probably has it's share of positives, and I think it's preferable than if you had taken heed to this instruction from the getgo. You would have just avoided and judged more people through immature criteria.

[DividedsGhost]

No one person is better in value than the other. Inevitably, we're all the same. We tend to perceive life in a bubble though, so it's easy to assume otherwise... it's a disillusion.

[EyeSeeCold]

Let yourself = U, U = 1

Have no friends not equal to U

Have no friends not equal to (1)

Have 1 friend

[Bluenoir]

What I meant was that to the universe we're insignificant tiny little specks of nothing part of a bigger whole, anyway. We're all eventually going be recycled. The life we perceive is inadequate. No one is better than you & you're no better than anyone else; it's all a mind state.

That analogy is annoying beacuse it implies the universe somehow designates value.

No one is better than you & you're no better than anyone else; it's all a mind state

Meaningless post modern relativism. I agree no one is better than me by any innate sense of the word, but people do have different strengths and weakness that don't necessarily equal out 1=1. To say that's all just a matter opinion is head burying.

[Nevero]

my interpretation was very simple: don't associate with people who will pull you down