5.14
When Zilu heard any precept and was still trying unsuccessfully to put it into practice, his one fear was that he might hear some fresh precept.
子路有聞，未之能行，唯恐有聞。
Notes
Zilu (Zhong You), a renowned disciple of Confucius, embodied steadfast integrity, decisiveness, and action-oriented courage. Though often criticized by Confucius for impulsive haste, his commitment to practice over empty talk earned his master’s deep respect.
For Zilu, mere knowledge without enactment was equal to ignorance. He feared accumulating new insights before fully embodying existing principles — a path leading to “abundant knowledge but scarce practice.” True learning, he believed, must guide and transform conduct; unused principles become nothing but intellectual burdens.
“A gentleman desires to be slow in speech but earnest in action.”(Analects 4.24)
It reinforces the principle of “valuing action over speech” through the maxim of “being slow in speech and earnest in action”. Consistent with Zilu’s pragmatic attitude of “dreading to hear new teachings before putting the learned ones into practice”, it opposes the tendency of “hearing much but doing little”, highlighting that action is the core of moral practice.
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