Warren Buffett
93% Profile Match
Anonymous (Yuan dynasty), Half Portraits of the Great Sage and Virtuous Men of Old, leaf for Meng Ke. The National Palace Museum, Taipei, open data (CC0 low-resolution tier; cropped and downscaled) · Leaf for Meng Ke (孟軻) from the album 'Half Portraits of the Great Sage and Virtuous Men of Old', anonymous, Yuan dynasty (after 1330), ink and colours on paper, 33.3 x 24.3 cm, National Palace Museum, Taipei (object number 中畫000329N000000003). The leaf's inscription reads 鄒國亞聖公 (Duke of Zou, Second Sage) with the name 孟軻 (Meng Ke), and the museum's catalogue entry names the sitter. It is a conventional portrait made more than 1,600 years after Mencius died, not a likeness from life. The file is a crop of the leaf (museum colour card and mount edge removed) from the museum's own image service, downscaled from about 1580 x 2130 source pixels to 804 x 1084 with no upscaling. · CC0 (the museum's open-data declaration for images up to about 1 million pixels; the painting is also public domain by age)
philosopher · Ancient
Mencius
372 BCE–289 BCE
Known For
culturaleducationalhistorical
Not yet included in personality matching — the documented evidence doesn't yet cover enough of the personality model. Everything else on this page is fully available.
Key Achievements
He argued that human nature is good: people are born with sprouts of compassion and other virtues that cultivation can grow, a case he made in the Mencius, which made him the 'Second Sage' of Confucianism.
The Mencius, a collection of his dialogues and sayings compiled by his disciples, was later grouped by Zhu Xi with the Great Learning, the Analects and the Mean as the Four Books, which became the orthodox reading for the civil-service examinations.
He defended Confucian ethics against the rival doctrines of Yang Zhu and Mozi and taught a circle of disciples, with whom he set in order the Odes and Documents and wrote down his teaching.
Moments That Reveal Them
Asked why people call him fond of disputation, he answers in the text that he argues only because he must, to defend the way of the sages against the doctrines of Yang Zhu and Mozi that fill the world.
This is consistent with a thinker who defined his own position against both dominant doctrines of his day. Independent Thinking
When Gaozi likens human nature to carved wood and to flowing water, Mencius replies that carving wood into a cup violates the wood's nature and that water's nature is to flow downward, so that people can be made bad but their nature stays as it was.
This is consistent with a debater who tested an opponent's analogies point by point. Analytical Rigour
Turning Points
According to Sima Qian, after the rulers he served found his teaching remote from affairs and did not use it, he withdrew and, with Wan Zhang and other disciples, set in order the Odes and Documents, set out the ideas of Confucius and made the seven chapters of the Mencius.
This is consistent with a shift from seeking a hearing at court to teaching and writing. Mastery Orientation
Similar People
People whose overall profiles resemble theirs.
Rosalind Franklin
93% Profile Match
Ada Lovelace
93% Profile Match
Alan Turing
93% Profile Match
Leonardo da Vinci
93% Profile Match
Marie Curie
93% Profile Match
Opposite Profile
Not a rival — a different profile shape worth a look.
Susan B. Anthony
57% Profile Match
Sources
- Mencius (Q188903), verified live via the Wikidata API (2026-11-01): label 'Mencius', description 'Chinese Confucian philosopher (372-289 BC)', birth 372 BC and death 289 BC (year precision), Korean label 맹자, image the Yuan-dynasty album leaf at the National Palace Museum. Orientation only; not used as support for any row.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 'Mencius' (Bryan Van Norden), life and Confucian background, opponents and later-influence sections read. CANONICAL SIGNIFICANCE SOURCE: a Confucian philosopher of the fourth century BCE called the 'Second Sage', best known for the claim that human nature is good; our main access is the Mencius, a collection of his dialogues, debates and sayings probably compiled by his disciples or their disciples and edited by Zhao Qi in the second century CE; he called himself a follower of Confucius yet urged reading the classics critically ('better not to have the Documents than to believe everything in it', 7B3); he argued against Yang Zhu's egoism and Mozi's impartial caring, with a swift reductio against a rival definition of nature (6A3) and the child-at-the-well thought experiment (2A6); he was criticised by Zhuangzi and by Xunzi, who attacks him by name; later Neo-Confucians elevated him and Zhu Xi grouped the Mencius with the Great Learning, the Analects and the Mean as the Four Books, whose interpretations became the civil-service orthodoxy. Scholarly reference; its praise of influence is retrospective.
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 'Mencius (Mengzi)' (Warring States Confucian philosopher, c. 372-289 BCE), history, text and interpreters sections read: the historical Mencius is available only through the text bearing his name, which most scholars think was assembled by Mencius and his immediate disciples shortly after his death; the biography in Sima Qian's Shiji says he came from Zou and is said (doubted by most modern scholars) to have studied with Confucius's grandson Zisi; his office in Qi was probably honorary; he gathered a circle of disciples; his philosophical concerns show consistency unusual in early Chinese writing; in the Gaozi dialogue (6A) he answers Gaozi's wood and water analogies for human nature 'in Socratic fashion'; Xunzi rejects his view of nature as originally good. Independent scholarly reference.
- Sima Qian, 'Records of the Grand Historian', chapter 74, 'Biographies of Mencius and Xunqing' (Chinese Wikisource, original Chinese read): the Mencius paragraph says he was from Zou, received instruction from Zisi's disciples, travelled to serve King Xuan of Qi and then Liang, and that the rulers found his talk of the virtue of Yao, Shun and the Three Dynasties remote from affairs and did not use it; he then withdrew and, with Wan Zhang and others, set in order the Odes and Documents, set out the ideas of Zhongni (Confucius) and made seven chapters of the Mencius. Written about two centuries after his death; the nearest surviving independent biography; brief and partly dismissive.
- The Mencius (Mengzi), Chinese original on Wikisource, passages read in books 2A (knowing words, nourishing the vital force, the child at the well), 3B (3B1, 3B2, 3B9 on why he opposes the schools of Yang Zhu and Mozi, 3B10) and 7A (7A20, the three joys of the exemplary person, the third being to gain the gifted of the world and educate them); the text records his teaching, debates and sayings and is a compilation by his disciples, so it is treated as self or near-self report. Used only for what he is recorded as arguing and doing in disputes and teaching, never for doctrine presented as legend, and never as sole support for a row.
- Xunzi, 'Human Nature Is Bad' (chapter 23) and 'Against the Twelve Masters' (chapter 6), Chinese original on Wikisource, the passages naming Mencius read: Xunzi quotes Mencius's claim that human nature is good and answers 'this is not so', arguing that goodness comes from deliberate effort; in chapter 6 he says Zisi led and Mencius followed in setting out an old scheme of 'five conducts' that the vulgar Confucians took on trust, and blames both. The hostile fellow-Confucian counter-voice, written within about a century of Mencius.
- World History Encyclopedia, 'Mencius' (Joshua J. Mark, 2020), read: a Confucian philosopher of the Warring States period regarded as the greatest after Confucius for interpreting and spreading Confucian ideas, whose central claim was basic human goodness; he taught his own school and counselled rulers, and the Mencius was composed by his students. Popular reference; its anecdotes about his mother and the funeral are legend or late tradition and are NOT scored.