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Mencius

Chinese Confucian philosopher (372–289 BC)

  • Fame69.0
  • Momentum0.0
  • Academics rank#168
Source-basedFalling
  • Fame69.0
  • Momentum0.0
  • Academics rank#168
  • Wikipedia24.3K
Lived -372–-289, aged 83
AcademicsAcademic
  • Wikipedia
    76 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    -372–-289
    Aged 83
Summary
Updated 2026-06-08

The philosopher who argued that people are born good — and that rulers who forget this will lose everything. His debates with kings during China's bloodiest centuries became one of Confucianism's core texts, and his optimism about human nature still divides scholars from the pessimists who followed.

Biography

About

Born Meng Ke around 371 BC, he joined Confucius's lineage four generations down and inherited a tradition in need of sharper edges. The Warring States period gave him his laboratory: he travelled from court to court, trying to convince rulers that humane governance wasn't idealism but survival, that citizens under good policy would naturally care for families, learn rites, and strengthen the state. Those conversations became the Mencius, later canonised as a Confucian classic. His insistence that human nature is righteous set him against Xunzi, who called it evil, a split that never healed. He…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Mencius

Mencius
saidundated
If the king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.
— Discourses, as quoted in "I Want to Know!" by Ivan Gogol Esipoff, The Etude, Vol. LXIII, No. 9 (September 1945), p. 496
Mencius
saidundated
Mencius went to see King Huei of Liang.
— Book 1, part 1, as translated by James Legge in The Life and Works of Mencius (1875), p. 124
Mencius
saidundated
He who outrages benevolence is called a ruffian: he who outrages righteousness is called a villain.
— 1B:8, In relation to righteousness and the overthrow of the tyrannous King Zhou of Shang, as translated by Sir Robert Kennaway Douglas,
Mencius
saidundated
Those who are humane achieve glory. Those who are inhumane suffer disgrace.
— 2A:4
Mencius
saidundated
They who accord with Heaven are preserved, and they who rebel against Heaven perish.
— Book 4, part 1, ch. 7
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
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By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Falling
69.0
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum0.0
Historical24.9
Now attention5.8
Source confidence60.0
Completeness60.0
Global rank
—
Country rank
—
Category rank
#168
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence