Mencius Quotes

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

It is true that water will flow indifferently to east and west, but will it flow equally well up and down? Human nature is disposed toward goodness, just as water tends to flow downwards. There is no water but flows downwards, and no man but shows his tendency to be good. Now, by striking water hard, you may splash it higher than your forehead, and by damming it, you may make it go uphill. But, is that the nature of water? It is external force that causes it to do so. Likewise, if a man is made to do what is not good, his nature is being similarly forced.

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

Humans are basically good. That's why it takes so much training to march march march kill kill kill kill.

The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man; insomuch, that if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living creatures; as it is seen in the Turks, cruel people, who, nevertheless, are kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds.

There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.

I've been surfing once in my entire life and I wasn't terrible at it, but my love for music is like the Hamilton family loves water. I understand it - but I'll stick to music.

No atomic physicist has to worry, people will always want to kill other people on a mass scale. Sure, he's got the fridge full of sausages and spring water.

... deep down nobody is bad, only frightened.

People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society.

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

I love you like a river that understands that it must learn to flow differently over waterfalls and to rest in the shallows. I love you because we are all born in the same place, at the same source, which keeps us provided with a constant supply of water.

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

Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the researchers and anyone who would claim to have discovered the opposite. No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it's all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another.

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.

Man is not born wicked; he becomes so, as he becomes sick.

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.

Time was a face on the water, and like the great river before them, it did nothing but flow.

There are principles that govern human effectiveness - natural laws in the human dimension that are just as real, just as unchanging and unarguably there as laws such as gravity are in the physical dimension.

Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms.

Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.

Although man is already ninety per cent water, the Prohibitionists are not yet satisfied.