Quoted from Mencius' Mencius, the original text is: ancient people, successful people, Zejia people; If you don't succeed, cultivate your morality and see the world. If you are poor, you will be immune, and if you are rich, you will help the world. "
This is what Mencius said when discussing with the military strategist Song Goujian what is the correct way to speak. Mencius believed that people should set up the ambition of serving the people at any time. You should help people when you succeed. When you are unsuccessful, you should cultivate your self-cultivation and improve your spiritual realm.
Mencius' words inspired countless people with lofty ideals to make contributions to the just cause of the country and the nation, and also inspired some frustrated intellectuals not to give up, not to abandon, to stick to the bottom line thinking, to stick to the people's conscience, and to go to rural Shan Ye to be a hermit in quietism.
Extended data
Mencius (about 372 BC-289 BC), surnamed Ji, was born in Zou State (now Zoucheng, Jining, Shandong) during the Warring States Period.
A famous philosopher, thinker, politician and educator in the Warring States period, one of the representatives of Confucianism, was second only to Confucius, and was also called "Confucius and Mencius" with Confucius. Advocating "benevolent government", he first put forward the idea that "the people are more expensive than the monarch".
Han Yu listed Mencius as a Confucian figure who inherited the Confucian orthodoxy in the pre-Qin period in The Original Road. In the Yuan Dynasty, Mencius was named "Elegant Gong Sheng Chen Shu" and honored as "Elegant Saint". Mencius is a collection of essays compiled by Mencius' disciple * *, which advocates "benevolence-oriented".
Representative works include "I want what I want" and "If you get it, you will get more help, and if you lose it, you will get less help". Born in sorrow, died in happiness, wealth can not be immoral, and I am the same in the countryside, all of which have been included in middle school Chinese textbooks.
Anecdotal allusions:
1, Meng Mu moved three times:
In the past, when Mencius was a child, his father died young, and his mother kept a festival and did not remarry. Mencius' mother attached great importance to Mencius' education and strictly controlled it, hoping that one day Mencius would become a useful person. At first, they lived next to the cemetery. Mencius and his neighbor's children learned to bow down and cry like adults and played a funeral game. Mencius' mother looked at it and frowned: "No! I can't let my children live here! "
Mencius' mother took Mencius to the fair, and when they arrived at the fair, Mencius and the children in the neighborhood began to learn the way businessmen did business and shouted. Mencius' mother said, "This place is not suitable for my children to live in!" "Mencius' mother took Mencius to live near the place where pigs and sheep were slaughtered. Mencius learned to buy and sell slaughtered pigs and sheep. Mencius' mother knew this and frowned: "This place is still not suitable for my children to live in! "
So they moved again. This time, they moved near the school. At this time of the first day of the summer calendar every month, officials go to the Confucian Temple, bow down and treat each other politely. Mencius learned to remember what he saw. Mencius' mother nodded with satisfaction and said, "This is where my son should live!" " "So I live here.
2. Mencius was educated.
Mencius' wife was alone in the house, squatting on the ground. When Mencius entered the room and saw his wife like this, he said to his mother, "This woman is rude. Please allow me to divorce her. " Meng Mu said, "What is the reason?" Mencius said, "She squatted on the ground." Meng Mu asked, "How do you know?" Mencius said, "I saw it with my own eyes." Meng Mu said, "This is because you are impolite, not because women are impolite. The Book of Rites doesn't say that when you want to enter the door, you should first ask who is in the room;
When you are about to enter the hall, you should first announce it loudly to let the people inside know; When you enter the room, you must look down. "The Book of Rites" said this in order not to catch people off guard. Now you go to your wife's resting place, and there is no noise when you enter the house, and people don't know it, so you can see her squatting on the ground.
It is you who are rude, not your wife who is rude. "After listening to Meng Mu's teaching, Mencius realized that he was wrong, and never dared to talk about divorcing his wife again.
Baidu encyclopedia-Mencius