Q0406

Mencius

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Only when there are things one will not do, can one then accomplish things.
Thinker Mencius
School Confucianism
Source Mencius, Li Lou II
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Mencius, Li Lou 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 philosophy, 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.). Only when there are things one will not do, can one then accomplish things. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0406

MLA: Mencius. “Only when there are things one will not….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0406.

Chicago: Mencius. “Only when there are things one will not….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0406.

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 philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme