"The superior man has three things in which he delights, and to be ruler over the kingdom is not one of them. That his father and mother are both alive, and that the condition of his brothers affords no cause for anxiety;—this is one delight. That, when looking up, he has no occasion for shame before Heaven, and, below, he has no occasion to blush before men;—this is a second delight. That he can get from the whole kingdom the most talented individuals, and teach and nourish them;—this is the third delight."

"民為貴，社稷次之，君為輕。"

"He who exerts his mind to the utmost knows his nature."

"The way of learning is none other than finding the lost mind."

"If you let people follow their feelings, they will be able to do good. This is what is meant by saying that human nature is good."

"How lamentable is it to neglect the path and not pursue it, to lose the mind and not know to seek it again! When men’s fowls and dogs are lost, they know to seek for them again, but they lose their mind and do not know to seek for it."

"The sense of mercy is found in all men; the sense of shame is found in all men; the sense of respect is found in all men; the sense of right and wrong is found in all men."

"They who accord with Heaven are preserved, and they who rebel against Heaven perish."

"The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of humanity; the feeling of shame and dislike is the beginning of righteousness; the feeling of deference and compliance is the beginning of propriety; and the feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Men have these Four Beginnings just as they have their four limbs. Having these Four Beginnings, but saying that they cannot develop them is to destroy themselves."

"Before a man can do things there must be things he will not do."

"Benevolence brings under its sway whatever hinders its power, just as water subdues fire: they only doubt the power of water to quench flames who try to extinguish with a cupful a whole burning wagon-load of fagots."

"He who outrages benevolence is called a ruffian: he who outrages righteousness is called a villain. I have heard of the cutting off of the villain Chow, but I have not heard of the putting of a ruler to death."

"Those who are humane achieve glory. Those who are inhumane suffer disgrace."

"Mencius went to see King Huei of Liang. The king said, "Venerable sir, since you have not counted it far to come here, a distance of a thousand li, may I presume that you are provided with counsels to profit my kingdom?" Mencius replied, "Why must your Majesty use that word "profit"? What I am provided with, are counsels to benevolence and righteousness, and these are my only topics.""

"大人者，不失其赤子之心者也"

"The feeling of distress is the root of benevolence, therefore a benevolent man is ever mindful of those who are suffering and in distress."

"If the king loves music, there is little wrong in the land."

"Why should thinkers mock the simple pieties of the people?"

"A signpost doesn't in and of itself represent the way to the village. We have to learn how to take it."

"Myself, I have never seen a bumper sticker saying "Hate if you Love Jesus", but I sometimes wonder why not. It would be a good slogan for the religious Right."

"Perhaps to restore human freedom we should deny determinism?"

"Thoughts are strange things. they have 'representational' powers: a thought typically represents the world as being one way or another. A sensation, by contrast, seems to just sit there."

"What underlies our assignment of probabilities in the real world?"

"Contemporary culture is not very good on responsibility."

"Chance is as relentless as necessity."

"In Michigan recently a man won a lawsuit for substantial damages because, he claimed, a rear-end collision in his car had made him a homosexual."

"But if nothing does as well as something about which nothing can be said, it vanishes."

"We hope for lives whose story leaves us looking admirable; we like our weaknesses to be hidden and deniable... We want to enjoy our lives, and we want to enjoy them with a good conscience ... Ethics is disturbing. We are often vaguely uncomfortable when we think of such things as exploitation of the world's resources, or the way our comforts are provided by the miserable labour conditions of the third world ... Racists and sexists, like antebellum slave owners in America, always have to tell themselves a story that justifies their system."

"An ethic gone wrong is an essential preliminary to the sweat shop or the concentration camp and the death march."

"The word "philosophy" carries unfortunate connotations: impractical, unworldly, weird."

"In the end, it is ideas for which people kill each other."

"Since there is no telling in advance where it may lead, reflection can be seen as dangerous."

"There was content, but no container."

"If our best efforts come to nothing often enough, we need consolation, and thoughts of unfolding, infinite destiny, or karma, are sometimes consoling."

"The scientific world is to be less threatening than was feared. It is to be made safe for human beings. And the way to make it safe is to reflect on the foundation of knowledge."

"Motion however will not help unless we have things moving."

"Finding a mechanism does not bypass the problem of induction."

"We think about what to do, and muster considerations and arguments in favor of one course or another. How are we to think about that?"

"Paradigms can be asked to show their worth, an some of them do not stand up."

"A god that created the world and then walked off the site leaving it to its own devices is not a fit object of worship, nor a source of moral authority."

"Nobody ever inferred from the multiple infirmities of Windows that Bill Gates was infinitely benevolent, omniscient, and able to fix everything."

"According to Confucianism, the ideal life contains a large dose of respect for traditional ways. All these ideals can be fleshed out and painted in more or less attractive colours. Yet there is something uncomfortable about them, if only because there is little reason to suppose that there is any such thing as the ideal life. Since different people have different tastes and interests, and different cultures encourage different concerns, it seems unlikely that any 'ideal life' will be heavily contextualized: ideal for this person in these circumstances, perhaps, but not much more."

"But it is logically impossible that there could exist an 'unowned' dent, a dent without a surface that is dented."

"Induction is the process of taking things within our experience to be representative of the world outside our experience. It is a process of projection or extrapolation."

"It can seem an amazing fact that laws of nature keep on holding, that the frame of nature does not fall apart."

"We can grieve over lost powers and memories, or rejoice over gained knowledge and maturity, according to taste."