Mencius Quotes

Water indeed will flow indifferently to the east or west, but will it flow indifferently up or down? The tendency of our nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downwards. There are none but have this tendency to good, just as all water flows downward.

Human nature is good, just as water seeks low ground. There is no man who is not good, just as there is no water that does not flow downward.

The tendency of mans nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downward.

Water seeks its own level. Look at them. The Tigris, the Euphrates, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Yangtze. The world's great rivers. And every one of them finds its way to the ocean.

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

I love the feeling of the weightlessness. I always love being in the water and to combine jumping off the side into the water feels like a different and fun way to be able to swim. I feel free like I could do anything

The great truth that is too often forgotten is that it is in the nature of people to do good to one another.

Water finds the easiest path down a mountain.

Up from the bronze, I saw Water without a flaw Rush to its rest in air Reach to its rest, and fall.

Water in the boat is the ruin of the boat, but water under the boat is its support.

The floating vapour is just as true an illustration of the law of gravity as the falling avalanche.

The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man.

Weightless in water, swift as the wind, Subtle of purpose - a feather blown - I go with my oarsmen where they will, My beautiful body and theirs all one.

The first evil choice or act is linked to the second; and each one to the one that follows, both by the tendency of our evil nature and by the power of habit, which holds us as by a destiny

We are fundamentally good, and evil is an aberration.

Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.

It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.

God has made all men to be happy.

Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, universally, among mankind.

Everybody has an instinctive desire to do good things and avoid evil. But that desire is sterile as long as we have no experience of what it means to be good.

When a man is starving in the streets he is not thinking of bread and water, but of caviar and champagne!

They are inherently good - the bad reactions aren't basic. Every human being is a child of God and has more good in him than evil - but circumstances and associates can step up the bad and reduce the good. I've got great faith in the essential fairness and decency - you may say goodness - of the human being.

In years to come, he would be a giver of bread, not a stealer - proof again of the contradictory human being. So much good, so much evil. Just add water.

Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.

Truth ... is the sovereign good of human nature.