Quote by Mencius: “All men have a heart that cannot bear to see the suffering of others.”

Mencius believed compassion is not a learned behavior but something built into human nature from birth. When you feel distress at someone else's pain, that instinctive reaction is evidence that goodness is already inside you — not something you have to acquire.

Mencius composed during the Warring States period, when political violence and instability were widespread across China. His insistence on the innate goodness of human nature was a direct challenge to the Legalist school's claim that humans are fundamentally selfish and can only be controlled by strict law and punishment.

Chinese Confucian philosopher of the fourth century BCE, often called the Second Sage of Confucianism after Confucius himself. His collected conversations, the Mengzi, argued that human nature is fundamentally good and that benevolent government is both a moral and a practical necessity. He traveled across the warring states advocating for humane kingship.