Part 13 · 46 passages
This part page carries the argument map and stable citation routes; full source text, pinyin, and close bilingual reading live on the passage pages.
Jin Xin I centers on exhausting the heart, sincerity, and preserving the capacities already given in the human heart.
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孟子 7A.1
Because a person who never fully develops the heart remains trapped in fragments. Only when the heart's capacities are brought to completion can one perceive both oneself and the larger order one belongs to.
This opening passage of Jin Xin is a gateway into Mencius's view of cultivation, Heaven, and destiny, with clear relevance to search intent around nature and transcendence.
孟子 7A.2
Because he rejects the lazy habit of blaming every outcome on fate. One must first do what duty and prudence require; only what remains after that can rightly be received as appointment.
This passage serves searches around fate, responsibility, and what Mencius means by proper acceptance rather than passive resignation.
孟子 7A.3
Because without that distinction, people pour all effort into external results and end up misjudging both responsibility and freedom. Not everything sought is equally governable.
This passage fits strong search intent around effort, control, destiny, and what Mencius thinks is truly up to us.
孟子 7A.4
Because he is not inflating the self. He is saying that what most matters is not first outside us, but whether we become truthful on self-examination and actually act through reciprocity. That is what makes inward resources usable.
This passage is a strong search entry for readers looking for Mencius on selfhood, sincerity, and what it means to find moral completeness within.
孟子 7A.5
Because people do not lack action so much as illumination of action. If one simply repeats habit without asking what one is doing, why one is doing it, and what principle it serves, a person may walk on the way for life without ever knowing the way.
This passage serves searches around habit, reflection, and Mencius on practice and understanding. It is a key anchor for the site's method and self-cultivation cluster.
孟子 7A.6
Because shame is not decoration but the last alarm by which a person can still correct himself. Once even shamelessness no longer feels shameful, the inner brake has failed and moral recovery becomes much harder.
This passage serves searches around shame, moral repair, and Mencius on conscience. It is one of the sharpest short expressions of the heart of shame and dislike in the four beginnings.
Why does Mencius say that exhausting the heart leads to knowing nature and Heaven?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'He who has exhausted all his mental constitution knows his nature.
Why does Mencius say that everything has its appointment and yet that one who knows fate does not stand under a crumbling wall?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'There is an appointment for everything.
Why does Mencius divide seeking into what is within us and what lies outside us?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'When we get by our seeking and lose by our neglecting - in that case seeking is of use to getting, and the things sought for are those which are in ourselves.
Why does Mencius say that all things are complete in us and then immediately speak of self-examination and sincerity?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'All things are already complete in us.
Why does Mencius say that many people follow the path all their lives without knowing the way?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'To act without understanding, and to do so habitually without examination, pursuing the proper path all the life without knowing its nature - this is the way of mult…
Why does Mencius say that a person cannot be without shame?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'A man may not be without shame. When one is ashamed of having been without shame, he will afterwards not have occasion to be ashamed.'
Why does Mencius say that the sense of shame is of great importance?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The sense of shame is to a man of great importance.
Why does Mencius say that ancient worthy kings loved goodness and forgot power, and that worthy scholars likewise delighted in the way and forgot others' power?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The able and virtuous monarchs of antiquity loved virtue and forgot their power.
Why does Mencius place self-cultivation and benefiting the world on the same line?
Source opening: Mencius said to Song Gou Jian, 'Are you fond, Sir, of travelling to the different courts?
Why does Mencius say that heroes can rouse themselves even without a king Wen?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The mass of men wait for a king Wen, and then they will receive a rousing impulse. Scholars distinguished from the mass, without a king Wan, rouse themselves.'
Why does Mencius prize the ability to regard oneself without inflation so highly?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Add to a man the families of Han and Wei. If he then look upon himself without being elated, he is far beyond the mass of men.'
Why does Mencius say that people may toil without resentment, and even die without resenting those who kill them?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Let the people be employed in the way which is intended to secure their ease, and though they be toiled, they will not murmur.
Why does Mencius say that under kingly rule the people improve day by day without knowing who makes them do so?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Under a chief, leading all the princes, the people look brisk and cheerful.
Why does Mencius say that good teaching reaches the people more deeply than good government?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Kindly words do not enter so deeply into men as a reputation for kindness.
Why does Mencius say that what one can do without learning is innate ability, and what one knows without reflection is innate knowing?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The ability possessed by men without having been acquired by learning is intuitive ability, and the knowledge possessed by them without the exercise of thought is th…
Why does Mencius describe Shun's response to goodness as like a river bursting its banks?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'When Shun was living amid the deep retired mountains, dwelling with the trees and rocks, and wandering among the deer and swine, the difference between him and the r…
Why does Mencius state the work so simply: do not do what should not be done, and do not desire what should not be desired?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Let a man not do what his own sense of righteousness tells him not to do, and let him not desire what his sense of righteousness tells him not to desire - to act thu…
Why does Mencius say that people of virtue and practical intelligence are often found in sickness and trouble?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Men who are possessed of intelligent virtue and prudence in affairs will generally be found to have been in sickness and troubles.
Why does Mencius say that serving the ruler is not the highest form of service?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'There are persons who serve the prince;
Why does Mencius say that ruling the world is not among the noble person's three joys?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The superior man has three things in which he delights, and to be ruler over the kingdom is not one of them.
Why does Mencius say that benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and wisdom are rooted in the heart rather than in status or achievement?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Wide territory and a numerous people are desired by the superior man, but what he delights in is not here.
Why does Mencius say that when the world sees genuine care for the aged, humane people know it as the place to which they should return?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Bo Yi, that he might avoid Zhou, was dwelling on the coast of the northern sea when he heard of the rise of king Wen.
Why does Mencius connect the people's humanity directly to fields, taxes, and daily use?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Let it be seen to that their fields of grain and hemp are well cultivated, and make the taxes on them light - so the people may be made rich.
Why does Mencius join the art of contemplating water with the idea that it does not proceed before filling the hollows?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Confucius ascended the eastern hill, and Lu appeared to him small.
Why does Mencius say that the difference between Shun and Zhi lies simply between goodness and profit?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'He who rises at cock-crowing and addresses himself earnestly to the practice of virtue, is a disciple of Shun.
Why does Mencius say that holding the middle without weighing circumstances is just another kind of holding to one point?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The principle of the philosopher Yang was "Each one for himself.
Why does Mencius compare hunger and thirst harming the mouth to the way the heart too can be harmed?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The hungry think any food sweet, and the thirsty think the same of any drink, and thus they do not get the right taste of what they eat and drink.
Why does Mencius stress that Liu Xia Hui would not trade his integrity for the three highest offices?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Hui of Liu Xia would not for the three highest offices of State have changed his firm purpose of life.'
Why does Mencius compare serious purpose to digging a well?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'A man with definite aims to be accomplished may be compared to one digging a well.
Why does Mencius divide Yao and Shun, Tang and Wu, and the five hegemons into three levels of virtue?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Benevolence and righteousness were natural to Yao and Shun.
Why does Mencius say that exiling a ruler is permissible only with Yi Yin's purpose?
Source opening: Gong Sun Chou said, 'Yi Yin said, "I cannot be near and see him so disobedient to reason," and therewith he banished Tai Jia to Tong.
Why does Mencius think the superior man is not eating idly even when he does not farm?
Source opening: Gong Sun Chou said, 'It is said, in the Book of Poetry, "He will not eat the bread of idleness!
Why does Mencius say that the scholar's work is to exalt the aim?
Source opening: The king's son, Dian, asked Mencius, saying, 'What is the business of the unemployed scholar?
Why does Mencius say that refusing an unrighteous kingdom is still only a small righteousness?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'Supposing that the kingdom of Qi were offered, contrary to righteousness, to Chen Zhong, he would not receive it, and all people believe in him, as a man of the high…
Why does Mencius refuse to let Shun simply cancel the law in the case of Gu Sou's killing?
Source opening: Tao Ying asked, saying, 'Shun being sovereign, and Gao Yao chief minister of justice, if Gu Sou had murdered a man, what would have been done in the case?
Why does Mencius say that position alters one's air and nurture alters one's body?
Source opening: Mencius, going from Fan to Qi, saw the king of Qi's son at a distance, and said with a deep sigh, 'One's position alters the air, just as the nurture affects the body.
Why does Mencius say that feeding without love is like dealing with pigs, and loving without respect is like keeping animals?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'To feed a scholar and not love him, is to treat him as a pig.
Why does Mencius say that bodily form belongs to Heaven-given nature, yet only the sage can fully realize that form?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The bodily organs with their functions belong to our Heaven-conferred nature. But a man must be a sage before he can satisfy the design of his bodily organization.'
Why does Mencius compare the defense of shortened mourning to someone twisting his brother's arm while being told only, 'Slowly'?
Source opening: The king Xuan of Qi wanted to shorten the period of mourning.
Why does Mencius divide the superior person's teaching into five modes?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'There are five ways in which the superior man effects his teaching.
Why does Mencius refuse to lower the Way so that learners can feel it more attainable?
Source opening: Gong Sun Chou said, 'Lofty are your principles and admirable, but to learn them may well be likened to ascending the heavens - something which cannot be reached.
Why does Mencius say that when the world lacks the way, one must let the person vanish with the way rather than sacrifice the way to other people?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'When right principles prevail throughout the kingdom, one's principles must appear along with one's person.
Why does Mencius say he does not answer questions posed with rank, wisdom, age, or merit in hand?
Source opening: The disciple Gong Du said, 'When Geng of Tang made his appearance in your school, it seemed proper that a polite consideration should be paid to him, and yet you did not answer him…
Why does Mencius link sharp advance with quick retreat?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'He who stops short where stopping is acknowledged to be not allowable, will stop short in everything.
Why does Mencius separate loving things, being benevolent to people, and being affectionate to kin?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'In regard to inferior creatures, the superior man is kind to them, but not loving.
Why does Mencius say the wise press urgent tasks first and the benevolent make closeness to the worthy a duty?
Source opening: Mencius said, 'The wise embrace all knowledge, but they are most earnest about what is of the greatest importance.