The Analects – Chapter 130 (6.12). Ran Qiu’s self-drawn line

6.12

Ran Qiu said,”It is not that your Way does not commend itself to me, but that it demands powers I do not possess.”

The Master said,”He whose strength gives out collapses during the course of the journey (the Way); but you deliberately draw the line.”

冉求曰：「非不說子之道，力不足也。」子曰：「力不足者，中道而廢。今女畫。」

Notes

Ran Qiu explained that it was not Confucius’ teachings he disliked, but rather his own perceived limited capability to meet the master’s standards. Confucius countered that true incapacity would lead to exhaustion mid-effort before quitting, whereas Ran Qiu’s case differed entirely. The master criticized him:

“You do not fail from inability — you fail because you draw your own limit first.”

• Ran Qiu’s attitude reflects a universal human frailty: fear of failure, risk aversion, and self-complacency.
• Confucius’ retort unveils a core educational principle:
  “The true barrier is seldom ability — it is the mindset and resolve.”

Mencius said: “He who abandons himself cannot be reasoned with; he who gives himself up cannot be helped. To speak against ritual and righteousness is to abandon oneself; to be unable to uphold benevolence and follow righteousness in one’s conduct is to give oneself up.”(Mencius 7.10)

The concept of “giving oneself up” as defined by Mencius refers to the voluntary abandonment of the pursuit of “upholding benevolence and following righteousness”.

This is highly consistent with the essence of “now you are merely drawing a line for yourself”. Ran Qiu excused himself by claiming “lack of ability”, but in reality, he was “giving himself up” – unwilling to actively practice Confucius’ way.

Confucius criticized “drawing a line for oneself” and Mencius condemned “giving oneself up”; both were opposing voluntary self-abandonment driven by subjective reluctance.

“It is like piling up a mound of earth. If you stop when one basketful is still needed to complete it, then it is you who have stopped. It is also like leveling the ground. Even if you have only laid down one basketful of earth, if you keep going, then it is you who are moving forward.”(Analects 9.19)

With the metaphors of “piling up a mound” and “leveling the ground”, Confucius made it clear that the initiative to stop or advance lies entirely with oneself – stopping when one basketful of earth is still lacking to finish the mound amounts to voluntary surrender, while continuing to lay even one basketful of earth on the ground counts as active progress.

This is completely consistent with the critical logic of the remark “What you call lack of ability is just giving up halfway; now you are merely drawing a line for yourself”.

Quitting halfway due to genuine exhaustion of strength is understandable; yet quitting out of self-imposed limitations (like drawing a boundary around oneself to restrict movement) means abandoning the initiative to forge ahead, which is essentially the same problem as the “voluntary stopping” described in the line “stopping when one basketful is still needed to complete it – then it is you who have stopped”.