Mencius Quotes

“With melted snow I boil fragrant tea.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“Integrity, wisdom, skill, intelligence – such things are forged in adversity.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“So it is that whenever Heaven invests a person with great responsibilities, it first tries his resolve, exhausts his muscles and bones, starves his body, leaves him destitute, and confound his every endeavor. In this way his patience and endurance are developed, and his weaknesses are overcome. We change and grow only when we make mistakes. We realize what to do only when we work through worry and confusion. And we gain people’s trust and understanding only when our inner thoughts are revealed clearly in our faces and words.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“People are distressed by their inability to do it. The problem, however, is simply that they don't do it.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“Filling with food,
Warming with clothes,
Living leisurely without learning,
It is little short of animals.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“There’s only one way to know if people are good or evil: look at the choices they make. We each contain precious and worthless, great and small. Never injure the great for the sake of the small, or the precious for the sake of the worthless. Small people nurture what is small in them; great people nurture what is great in them.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“Don’t do what should not be done, and don’t desire what should not be desired. Abide by this one precept, and everything else will follow.”
― Mencius, Mencius

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

“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.”
― Mencius, Mencius

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

“All beneath Heaven is rooted in nation. Nation is rooted in family. And family is rooted in self.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“Words that defy reality are ominous. And it’s ominous reality that confronts those who would obscure the wise and worthy.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“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.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“Getting something done is like digging a well. You can dig a well seventy feet deep, but if you don’t hit water it’s just an abandoned well.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“Words that speak of things close at hand and carry far-reaching implications – those are the good words.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“All tongues savor the same flavors, all ears hear the same music, and all eyes see the same beauty.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“I am not fond of disputation; I have no alternative.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“The heart of compassion is the germ of benevolence; the heart of shame, of dutifulness; the heart of courtesy and modesty, of observance of the rites; the heart of right and wrong, of wisdom. Man has these four germs just as he has four limbs. For a man possessing these four germs to deny his own potentialities is for him to cripple himself.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“It’s simple: To say anything about the nature of things, you must attend to the facts, facts in their original form. The trouble with knowledge is that it keeps chiseling things away.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“There are things a person wants more than life and there are also things he or she loathes more than death.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“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.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“The sole concern of learning is to go after this strayed heart. That is all.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“When someone dies, You say, ‘It wasn’t me. It was due to the harvest.’ How is this different from killing someone by stabbing him and saying, ‘It wasn’t me. It was due to the weapon’? If Your Majesty does not blame the harvest, then the people of the world will come to You.”
― Mencius, Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries

“when people put profit before righteousness, they cannot be satisfied without grasping for more.”
― Mencius, Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries

“Hence, given the right nourishment there is nothing that will not grow, and deprived of it there is nothing that will not wither away.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“One who mutilates benevolence should be called a ‘mutilator.’ One who mutilates righteousness should be called a ‘crippler.’ A crippler and mutilator is called a mere ‘fellow.’ I have indeed heard of the execution of this one fellow Zhou, but I have not heard of it as the assassination of one’s ruler.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“As for the people, if they lack a constant livelihood, it follows that they will lack a constant heart. No one who lacks a constant heart will avoid dissipation and evil. When they thereupon sink into crime, to go and punish the people is to trap them.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“If others do not respond to your love with love, look into your own benevolence; if others fail to respond to your attempts to govern them with order, look into your own respect. In other words, look into yourself whenever you fail to achieve your purpose. When you are correct in your person, the Empire will turn to you.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“It is not worth the trouble to talk to a man who has no respect for himself, and it is not worth the trouble to make a common effort with a man who has no confidence in himself. The former attacks morality; the latter says, "I do not think I am capable of abiding by benevolence or of following rightness." Benevolence is man's peaceful abode and rightness his proper path. It is indeed lamentable for anyone not to live in his peaceful abode and not to follow his proper path.”
― Mencius, Mencius

“Mencius said: “In good years, young men are mostly fine. In bad years, they’re mostly cruel and violent. It isn’t that Heaven endows them with such different capacities, only that their hearts are mired in such different situations. Think about barley: if you plant the seeds carefully at the same time and in same place, they’ll all sprout and grow ripe by summer solstice. If they don’t grow the same – it’s because of inequities in richness of soil, amounts of rainfall, or the care given them by farmers. And so, all members belonging to a given species of thing are the same. Why should humans be the lone exception? The sage and I – surely we belong to the same species of thing.

“That’s why Master Lung said: Even if a cobbler makes a pair of sandals for feet he’s never seen, he certainly won’t make a pair of baskets. Sandals are all alike because feet are the same throughout all beneath Heaven. And all tongues savor the same flavors. Yi Ya was just the first to discover what our tongues savor. If taste differed by nature from person to person, the way horses and dogs differ by species from me, then how is it people throughout all beneath Heaven savor the tastes Yi Ya savored? People throughout all beneath Heaven share Yi Ya’s tastes, therefore people’s tongues are alike throughout all beneath Heaven.

“It’s true for the ear too: people throughout all beneath Heaven share Maestro K’uang’s sense of music, therefore people’s ears are alike thoughout all beneath Heaven. And it’s no less true for the eye: no one throughout all beneath Heaven could fail to see the beauty of Lord Tu. If you can’t see his beauty, you simply haven’t eyes. “Hence it is said: All tongues savor the same flavors, all ears hear the same music, and all eyes see the same beauty. Why should the heart alone not be alike in us all? But what is it about our hearts that is alike? Isn’t it what we call reason and Duty? The sage is just the first to discover what is common to our hearts. Hence, reason and Duty please our hearts just like meat pleases our tongues.”
― Mencius, Mencius