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This is a practice from Rouzer Paul's book. It says,

PRACTICE: Put the following into literary Chinese:

  1. One who does good leads the heart (away) from disaster.

I think the predicate is ... 導心於禍, but what should the subject be? 聖人 seems appropriate, but it seems like that means "wise person" rather than describing someone who does good. Otherwise, 福 means good, but I don't think 福者 makes any sense.

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  • It's looks a little bit like "善有善報(，惡有惡報)", someone who does good(things?) will get good result? Or something like "好心有好報" (Someone who have benevolence would get good in return?) 好人、善人?
    – 高鵬翔
    Dec 15, 2020 at 7:55
  • Oh, it's probably “善者導心欲禍”, thanks for the memory jog.
    – mpnm
    Dec 15, 2020 at 7:59
  • "欲" have a little "becomes, will be" meaning, in fact, I'm not really understand what is "導心欲禍", I didn't see it before... but the “one who does good” could be "善者" right.
    – 高鵬翔
    Dec 15, 2020 at 8:09
  • You are confused 卻 (repel) with 欲 (desire)
    – Tang Ho ♦
    Dec 15, 2020 at 9:30
  • 2
    爲善者導心於禍 is probably what was intended.
    – Alexander Z.
    Dec 15, 2020 at 11:48

2 Answers 2

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PRACTICE: Put the following into literary Chinese:

One who does good leads the heart (away) from disaster.

My answer is: 君子修心遠禍

君子(good person) 修心(educates oneself) 離禍 (to get away from disaster)

You can replace 君子 with 善者; 遠禍 with 避禍 or 離禍

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since “classical chinese” is specified, i would recommend:

積善離殃

夫積者，accumulate 也；善者，goodness 也

離者，leave 也， go away 也；殃者，禍也，disaster 也

but what should the subject be?

in classical chinese, subject of verb is rarely mentioned; most of the time, if not all, it’s assumed.

have fun :)

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