Excerpt from the original:
Mencius said to him, "Only the benevolent can roll with the punches, so soup is Ge's business, and King Wen is Kun Yi's business." Only smart people can make a big deal out of small things, so King Tai made a big deal out of the whole thing and Gou Jian worked for Wu. Those who are big and small are also happy; People who take small things seriously are also afraid of the sky. Happy people protect the world, and those who fear the sky protect their country. "Poetry" says:' Fear the power of heaven and protect it at the right time. "
Vernacular translation:
Only the benevolent can serve a small country and a big country, so Shang Tang once served Guo Ge and Wang Wen served foreigners. Only a wise man can serve a big country with the way of a small country, so King Zhou Tai once served Xiang and Gou Jian served Wu. He who can serve a small country and a big country is willing to listen to his destiny; He who can serve a big country with the way of a small country is afraid of destiny.
Those who are willing to listen to destiny can rule the world, and those who fear destiny can protect the country. The Book of Songs says:' Only when you fear the majesty of heaven can you be stable.
Source: Mencius Liang Wang Hui, written by Mencius during the Warring States Period.
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".
Extended data:
Liang is the title of the first article in Mencius. Mencius, like The Analects of Confucius, has no title. Later generations generally use the first two or three words of the first chapter as the title. Mencius consists of seven chapters. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when Zhao Qi annotated Mencius, he divided each chapter into two chapters, and later generations took this as the basis.
(400 BC-3 19 BC), surnamed Ji, named Wei, was _ (y Ο ng), also known as Liang, and the bamboo book was compiled as "Liang/Wei Hui became king". He is the son of Wei Wuhou and the grandson of Wei Wenhou. He ascended the throne in 370 BC and reigned for 52 years.
Wei Huiwang ascended the throne of Wei in its heyday. After Wei Huiwang moved from Anyi to Daliang (now northwest of Kaifeng), Wei was also called Liang. However, in the later war, "the East lost Qi, the West lost more than 700 miles of Qin land, and the South humiliated Chu", and he began to decline. He died in 3 19 BC.
In 334 BC, Wei Huiwang and Qi Weiwang were allied in Xuzhou, and they considered each other king, which was called "King of Xuzhou" in history (Xuzhou was in Tengzhou, Shandong at that time).