Q0456

Mencius

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Treat the elders of your own family with reverence, and extend that to the elders of others; treat your own young with kindness, and extend that to the young of others.
Thinker Mencius
School Confucianism
Source Mencius, Liang Hui Wang I
Theme Love
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Mencius, Liang Hui Wang I, 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 love, 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.). Treat the elders of your own family with reverence, and extend that to the elders of others; treat your own young with kindness, and extend that to the young of others. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0456

MLA: Mencius. “Treat the elders of your own family with….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0456.

Chicago: Mencius. “Treat the elders of your own family with….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0456.

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 love

  1. Love is the desire for the perpetual possession of the good.
  2. A friend is another self.
  3. If you wish to be loved, love.
  4. Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
  5. Compassion is the basis of morality.

Browse the love theme