Mencius' thought advocates that the people are the most important, the country is the second, and the monarch is the light. Mencius believed that the country perished because the rulers lost their hearts and minds. As long as the monarch always keeps in mind the concept of governing the country, cares about the people and puts the interests of the people first, he can make the country prosperous and safe, and the country will last for a long time.

1, "official thinking of the mind", emphasizes the importance of thinking.

"Mencius Gao Zi Shang" said: "The officials of the eyes and ears don't think about it, but pay for it, so they just quoted it. Mind officials think about it, think about it, and get it. Not without thinking. " In the Tang dynasty, Han Yu refined this into "doing things is destroyed by thinking." Mao Zedong likes the way of thinking expressed in the famous saying "Where there is a will, there is a way", which has been quoted and played many times.

2. "Things are not unified, but emotional", attach importance to the particularity of things and emphasize the concrete analysis of specific problems.

"Harmony without difference" opposes the absolute identity of differences and advocates the connection with universality on the basis of attaching importance to particularity. "Things are not uniform, but things have feelings", which further emphasizes the particularity and is the development of Mencius' thought of "harmony but difference" to Confucius.

3. "People can do what they don't do, and then they can do it", emphasizing the correct handling of the relationship between "inaction" and "behavior"

"Mencius Li Lou" said: "People do what they don't do, and then they can do it." The dialectical relationship between "inaction" and "promising" is outlined here. Only by doing nothing in some things can we make a difference in others. Mencius' understanding of the relationship between "other people's behavior" and "own behavior" shows that "it is easy to get good comparative benefits through work" and also includes the understanding that you can only do something if you do something.

Extended data:

Mencius attached great importance to the opposition between people's hearts, and repeatedly expounded through a large number of historical examples that this is a key issue related to winning or losing in the world. "The people are precious, the country is second, and the monarch is light." It means the people first, the country second, and the monarch last. Mencius believed that the monarch should take care of the people first, and politicians should protect the rights of the people. Mencius agreed that the monarch has no way and the people have the right to overthrow the regime.

For this reason, Hanshu and Yiwenzhi only regard Mencius as a sub-book, without giving it its due status. In the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms of Houshu, Meng Changjun, the master of Houshu, ordered people to carve stones in eleven classics such as Mencius, which may be the beginning of Mencius' being included in the classics.

By the time of filial piety in the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu called Mencius, the Analects of Confucius, the University and the Doctrine of the Mean as the "Four Books" and became one of the "Thirteen Classics", and Mencius' position was pushed to the peak. Legend has it that Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was dissatisfied with Mencius' people-oriented thought and ordered people to abridge the relevant contents in Mencius.

References:

Mencius Thought-Baidu Encyclopedia