Approach Goodness Eagerly; Draw Back from Wrong as from Scalding Water

“When he sees what is good, he approaches it as though he cannot catch up; when he sees what is wrong, he draws back as though testing scalding water.” The sentence comes from the Ji Shi chapter of the Analects. “Cannot catch up” conveys eagerness to follow good conduct, while “testing hot water” pictures an immediate recoil from what is wrong.

Confucius continues by saying that he had seen such people and heard such words; of those who withdrew to preserve their purpose and acted rightly to realise their way, he had heard the claim but had not seen the person. The passage therefore measures moral language against actual conduct. Today it can remind us to act once a judgement is made, but not to skip the judgement itself: what others praise is not automatically good, and what feels uncomfortable is not automatically wrong.

https://ctext.org/analects/ji-shi