"3.  Respect the aged. Cherish little children.
Be hospitable to guests and travellers.

"4. Let the Literati have no hereditary charges
or magistracies. Let not different (inconsistent)
functions be imposed upon the same person. In
selecting public officers, let merit alone determine
your choice. Let not the administrators
of cities be put to death by your arbitrary
authority.

"5.  Let there be no dirt-heaps in your fields
(i.e. waste no manure). Prevent not the sale
(transfer) of the fruits of the earth (free trade).
Confer no principality without imperial
authority.

"After the compact, the principal vassal
prince said, 'You who with me have bound
yourselves by this treaty, sanctioned by all,
carry each with you sentiments of concord and
harmony.' "

"Seek and you will find; neglect anything,
you will lose everything; but we must seek what
is to be found within (our grasp), for we shall
not find what we seek if we seek what is beyond
(our reach)."

"If your lessons are listened to, preserve
your serenity; if they are not listened to,
preserve your serenity, for if you know your
truthfulness, why should you not be serene?"

"The (intellectual) nature of the superior
man is fixed and immutable, not augmented by
a wide sphere of action, not diminished by
poverty and nakedness."

"If with five acres you cultivate the
mulberry-tree, if your women raise silkworms, your
old men may be clad in silken garments; with
five fowls and two sons, and watching the
seasons, your old men will have food. One
labouring man will suffice for eight mouths."

"He who looks upon the ocean thinks little of
streams and rivers. He who has passed the
portal of the saints (who has been instructed
by the sages), will not value highly the teachings
of ordinary men."

"Yang thinks only of himself; he would not
pull a hair out of his head for the public good.

"Sué loves everybody; he would bend his
head to the dust if by so doing he could render
any benefit to the emperor."

Mencius quotes with high praise the "man
of eminent virtue," the Emperor Yaou, who
said to his brother, "Go, comfort ye the people,
gather them around you; correct them, assist
them, teach them to be prosperous, encourage
them by their own impulses to return to goodness.
Shower upon them many benefits."

It was of Yaou that Confucius said, "What
is so great as Heaven? Who but Yaou ever
resembled its greatness?"

"Sages have been known to change the
manners of barbarians, but a sage was never
converted to barbarism by barbarians."

"To dwell habitually in the great domicile of
humanity, to sit constantly in the becoming
seat (i.e. to be observant of the appropriate
ceremonies), to walk in the broad pathway (i.e.
to obey the great moral rules), to spread among
the people the harvests of your own good
fortune, and if good fortune fail you, to confer all
the benefits at your disposal, to be incorruptible
by riches, impassible under poverty and
humiliation, to show no fear in the presence of danger
and of an armed force, this is to be a great
man."

The prime minister of the kingdom of Sung
consulted Mencius, and told him that being
convinced of the oppressive character of a tax
that bore heavily upon the people, he thought
he should diminish it, and at the end of the
year abolish it altogether. Mencius answered,
"There was a man who was accustomed to
steal every day the poultry of his neighbours,
and was reproached for his dishonesty. 'Well,'
he answered, 'I will amend little by little. I
will only steal one fowl a month for a year to
come, and then I will abstain altogether.' No,"
said Mencius, "no, when you know that what
you do is unjust, cease at once to do it. Why
wait a year?"

"Men talk idly about empire, nation, family.
The foundation of the empire is in the nation,
of the nation in the family, of the family in the
individual; in fine, government is founded on
the people, the people on the family, the family
on its chief."

"Win a people and the empire is won; win
their hearts and their affections, and you win the
people; you win their hearts by meeting their
wishes, by providing for their wants, and
imposing upon them nothing that they detest."

"As the fish hurries away from the otter to
the protection of the deep waters, as the little
bird flies to the thick forest from the hawk, so
do subjects fly from wicked kings."

"You cannot reason with the passionate, you
cannot act with the feeble or the capricious."

"Sure and sincere truth is heaven's pathway;
to meditate on truth in order to practise it is
to discover the pathway and the duty of man."

"No man who has been consistently true and
sincere has failed to win the confidence and
favour of other men. No man in whom truth
and sincerity have been wanting has ever long
possessed their confidence and favour."

"The good man needs not impose on himself
the obligation of truthful words (truth being
natural to him), he needs no special resolution
(in a particular case), for equity and justice are
his habitual guides."

"The benevolent man loves mankind; the
courteous man respects them. He who loves
men will be loved by them; he who respects
men will be respected by them."

"If I am treated rudely, let me examine into
the cause, and if I cannot discover any sort of
impropriety in my own conduct, I may disregard
the rudeness, and consider him who displays it
as no better than a brute, and why should the
conduct of a brute disturb me?"