How to Read “Good and evil depend on friends”
Zen’aku wa tomo ni yoru
Meaning of “Good and evil depend on friends”
“Good and evil depend on friends” means that whether a person becomes good or bad is determined by the friends they keep.
Humans are strongly influenced by their surroundings. The character, behavior, and values of a person are shaped by the friends they spend time with.
This proverb is used when explaining the importance of choosing friends wisely. It’s often used to teach young people that friendships have a major impact on character development.
If you spend time with good friends, you naturally receive positive influences and become a good person. If you spend time with bad friends, you receive negative influences and may become a bad person.
This proverb clearly expresses the power of human relationships.
Even today, the idea that environment shapes people is widely accepted. The essence of this proverb still holds true.
It reminds us that choosing who we spend time with is a crucial factor that determines our own future.
Origin and Etymology
There are various theories about the exact origin of this proverb. It’s believed to have been formed in Japan under the influence of ancient Chinese thought, especially Confucianism.
The influence that “friends” have on character formation has been emphasized in Eastern philosophy since ancient times.
In Confucius’s Analects, there’s a saying: “There are three kinds of beneficial friends and three kinds of harmful friends.” It teaches that honest friends, sincere friends, and knowledgeable friends are beneficial.
Meanwhile, deceitful friends, flattering friends, and smooth-talking friends are harmful. This philosophy came to Japan and likely became the more concise expression “Good and evil depend on friends.”
In Japan, it’s thought to have spread as a teaching from the Heian period onward.
During the samurai era, choosing one’s lord and companions could mean the difference between life and death. The importance of friendships was a matter of life and death.
Similar teachings appear in Edo period moral instruction books and往来物 (textbooks). The importance of choosing friends was emphasized in children’s education.
The combination of the contrasting words “good and evil” with the causal expression “depend on” is very concise in Japanese. Yet it has the power to convey a deep truth.
Interesting Facts
Psychological research shows that people unconsciously tend to imitate the behavior patterns and values of close friends. This is called “social learning” and appears especially prominently during adolescence.
If your friends are studious, you become studious too. If your friends are lazy, you tend to become lazy as well. This phenomenon is scientifically supported.
Friendships influence not just behavior but also thought patterns and emotional responses.
Research shows that people who spend more time with positive friends become more optimistic. Those who spend more time with negative friends tend to become more pessimistic.
Usage Examples
- My son’s attitude has gotten worse since he started hanging out with strange friends. Good and evil depend on friends, so I’m worried.
- That child was blessed with good companions and grew up admirably. Good and evil depend on friends is truly well said.
Universal Wisdom
The universal truth shown by “Good and evil depend on friends” is that humans are fundamentally social beings.
We don’t live as isolated individuals. We constantly form ourselves within relationships with others.
People are like mirrors. We reflect the words, actions, and values of those around us and absorb them into ourselves.
This is less a conscious choice and more like human instinct. Throughout human history of living in groups, adapting to the collective and harmonizing with others was directly connected to survival.
That’s why we unconsciously receive influences from our surroundings and become colored by them.
This proverb has been passed down for so long because it’s not just a moral lesson. It’s an observation that strikes at the essence of human nature.
No matter how strong-willed a person is, they cannot escape the influence of people they interact with daily.
Just as water flows to low places, people have a nature of being carried along by their environment.
That’s why our ancestors repeatedly taught the importance of choosing one’s environment, especially choosing friends.
When you think about who you want to become, you’re also thinking about who you’ll spend your time with.
When AI Hears This
In network theory, there are two ways to measure a person’s influence. One is “degree centrality,” which is simply the number of friends.
The other is “eigenvector centrality,” which measures the quality of friends—whether you have influential friends.
What’s interesting about this proverb is that good and evil aren’t determined by simple addition. For example, suppose you have five friends.
If those five people are all honest and their friends are also honest, you’re at the center of a network of goodness.
Conversely, even one bad friend who has 100 bad friends means you’re indirectly within the sphere of influence of 101 bad people.
What’s even more interesting is that this influence is calculated recursively. Like Google’s PageRank, influence spreads to friends of friends and their friends.
This means that third- and fourth-degree friendships—people you’ve never met—actually influence your good and evil.
Research shows that behavior patterns propagate up to three hops away on a network (friends of friends of friends).
Good and evil depend not just on visible friends but on the structure of the entire invisible network. This mathematical truth is hidden within this proverb.
Lessons for Today
What this proverb teaches modern people is the true meaning of “freedom of choice” in life.
We may find it difficult to directly control our personality or destiny. But we can choose who we spend time with.
And that choice is what indirectly shapes who we become.
In modern society, the development of social media has expanded friendships but also made them more shallow.
However, what truly influences us are the deep relationships where we actually share time. The people you contact almost daily, converse with, and spend time together—those people are creating you.
So stop and think. Where are the people around you now leading you? Is the time you spend with them helping you grow?
If the answer is “no,” it might be time to courageously change your environment.
This doesn’t mean cutting off friends. It just means consciously increasing time with people who are moving in the direction you aim for, people you respect.
Just that alone can greatly change your life.
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