Mencius Quotes

All the children who are held and loved...will know how to love others. Spread these virtues in the world. Nothing more need be done.

If the king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.

Make your learning abundant and speak of it with precision, then you will speak of essentials.

The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart

A man must not be without shame, for the shame of being without shame is shamelessness indeed.

For nurturing the mind, there’s nothing like paring your desires away to a very few. If you have few desires, there may still be some capricious whims in your mind, but they’ll be few. If you have many desires, there may be some enduring principles in your mind, but they’ll be few indeed.

I understand what lies hidden beneath beguiling words. I understand the trap beneath extravagant words. I understand the deceit beneath depraved words. And I understand the weariness beneath evasive words.

He who outrages benevolence is called a ruffian: he who outrages righteousness is called a villain. I have heard of the cutting off of the villain Chow, but I have not heard of the putting of a ruler to death.

Mohists aimed at impartial consequences rather than individual self-interest. But Mengzi argues that this practice is self-undermining: aiming directly at profit is, paradoxically, unprofitable.

If someone stops where they should not, they’ll stop anywhere. If someone slights a person they should treat generously, they’ll slight anyone. And if someone races ahead, they retreat in a hurry.

Treat others as you would be treated. Devote yourself to that, for there’s no more direct approach to Humanity.

There are people dying from famine on the roads, and you do not issue the stores of your granaries for them. When people die, you say, 'it is not owing to me, it is owing to the year.' In what does this differ from stabbing a man and killing him, and then saying, 'it was not I, it was the weapon?

Before a man can do things there must be things he will not do.

The way of learning is none other than finding the lost mind.

The king was standing by the pond, gazing at the geese and deer, and said, “Do the worthy also delight in these things?” [2.2] Mengzi replied, “Only the worthy delight in these things. Those who are not worthy, even if they have these things, do not delight in them.