Mencius Quotes

To act without clear understanding, to form habits without investigation, to follow a path all one's life without knowing where it really leads; such is the behavior of the multitude.

The disease of men is that they neglect their own fields and go to weed the fields of others.

If you know the point of balance, You can settle the details. If you can settle the details, You can stop running around. Your mind will become calm. If your mind becomes calm, You can think in front of a tiger. If you can think in front of a tiger, You will surely succeed.

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

Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence

When Heaven is about to confer a great office on a man, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil ; it exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty ; it confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies.

He who loves others is constantly loved by them. He who respects others is constantly respected by them.

The foundation of the world lies in the nation. The foundation of the nation lies in the family. The foundation of the family lies in the individual.

The sole concern of learning is to seek one's original heart.

People are eager to comment on something when they themselves are not in the situation of doing it.

The feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom.

One who believes all of a book would be better off without books

Friendship is one mind in two bodies.

Only when someone refuses to do certain things will he be capable of doing great things.

There is a power in everything; it is the job of the artist to determine it and express it.

The best things in life come in threes, like friends, dreams, and memories.

Charity is in the heart of man, and righteousness in the path of men. Pity the man who has lost his path and does not follow it and who has lost his heart and does not know how to recover it. When people's dogs and chicks are lost they go out and look for them and yet the people who have lost their hearts do not go out and look for them. The principle of self-cultivation consists in nothing but trying to look for the lost heart.

The feeling of compassion is the beginning of humanity.

Truth uttered before its time is dangerous.

Never has a man who has bent himself been able to make others straight.

There is no greater delight than to be conscious of sincerity on self-examination.

Friends are the siblings God never gave us.

A man must first despise himself, and then others will despise him.

He who wishes to be benevolent will not be rich.

If you love men and they are unfriendly, look into your love; if you rule men and they are unruly, look into your wisdom; if you are courteous to them and they do not respond, look into your courtesy. If what you do is vain, always seek within.