Q0363

Mencius

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

That whereby humans differ from birds and beasts is slight; ordinary people discard it, the noble person preserves it.
Thinker Mencius
School Confucianism
Source Mencius, Jinxin II
Theme Human Nature
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Mencius, Jinxin II, within the tradition of Confucianism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of human nature, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Mencius's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Mencius. (n.d.). That whereby humans differ from birds and beasts is slight; ordinary people discard it, the noble person preserves it. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0363

MLA: Mencius. “That whereby humans differ from birds and beasts….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0363.

Chicago: Mencius. “That whereby humans differ from birds and beasts….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0363.

Same thinker

More from Mencius

  1. From this we know that we survive through adversity, and perish in ease and pleasure.
  2. Thus, when Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on someone, it first afflicts his mind and will, exhausts his muscles and bones, starves his body, subjects him to poverty, and confounds his undertakings — so as to stir his mind, harden his nature, and increase his capacities.
  3. Mencius said: In obscurity, cultivate yourself alone; when successful, bring goodness to all under Heaven.
  4. Mencius said: Those who love others are constantly loved by others; those who respect others are constantly respected by others.
  5. Those who have the Way receive much help; those who lose the Way receive little help.

All quotations by Mencius

Same theme

More on human nature

  1. Man is by nature a political animal.
  2. Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
  3. [In the state of nature, the life of man is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
  4. The heart of compassion is possessed by all; so too the hearts of shame, of respect, and of right and wrong.
  5. Human nature is bad; whatever is good about it is the product of deliberate activity (wei).

Browse the human nature theme