乐善好施

Origin and story

The Records of the Grand Historian's Book of Music links musical experience with moral character. In its discussion of different tones, hearing the zhi tone is said to encourage delight in goodness and generosity. The wording is 樂善而好施, a longer expression of the disposition preserved in the idiom.

This belongs to an ancient theory of music's ethical influence, not a biographical story about one donor or an experimentally established effect of a particular note. The exact four-character form also occurs in the Song Daoist compilation Yun Ji Qi Qian. In ordinary use, the phrase praises someone who willingly does good and gives practical help to others.