Mencius > Quotes

“Friendship is one mind in two bodies.”
― Mencius

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

“The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart”
― Mencius

“Only when there are things a man will not do is he capable of doing great things.”
― Mencius

“The way of truth is like a great road. It is not difficult to know it. The evil is only that men will not seek it.”
― 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

“The feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom”
― Mencius

“That's like climbing a tree to find a fish.”
― Mencius

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

“Sincerity is the way to Heaven.”
― Mencius

“A great man is he who has not lost the heart of a child.”
― 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

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

“Human-heartedness is man's mind. Righteousness is man's path. How sad that he abandons that path and does not rely on it; that he loses that mind and does not know to seek it. When a man has lost a cock or a dog, he knows to seek it, but having lost his (proper) mind, he does not know to seek it. The Way of Learning is nothing other than seeking the lost mind”
― Mencius

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

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

“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

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

“Friends are the siblings God never gave us”
― 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

“Great is the man who has not lost his childlike heart.”
― Mencius

“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.”
― Meng Zi

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