梁惠王曰：“寡人之于国也，尽心焉耳矣。河内凶，则移其民于河东，移其粟于河内；河东凶亦然。察邻国之政，无如寡人之用心者。邻国之民不加少，寡人之民不加多，何也？”

孟子对曰：“王好战，请以战喻。填然鼓之，兵刃既接，弃甲曳兵而走。或百步而后止，或五十步而后止。以五十步笑百步，则何如？”

曰：“不可，直不百步耳，是亦走也。”

曰：“于如知此，则无望民之多于邻国也。”

“I have spent a lot of time and effort.”stated King Hui of the state of Liang.“on governing my country. When there is a bad harvest in Henei, north of the Yellow River, I evacuate the people to Hedong, east of the Yellow River and move the grain of Hedong to Henei. When the harvest is bad in Hedong I would do the same for them. AS far as I could see, none of the rulers of the neighbouring states are as diligent as I. But the number of people in neighbouring states does not decrease and the number of my subjects does not increase. Why is this so?”

“ My lord likes fighting battles, ” replies Mencius,” so I will use an analogy from war: imagine bettledrums thundering and weapons clashing. At this time some soldiers abandon their armour and run away, dragging their weapons behind them. Some stop after going one hundred paces. Others halt after fifty paces. Those who ran only fifty paces laughed at those who ran a hundred. What do you think? ”

“ That’s not right. It’s just that they didn’t go a hundred paces, but they did run away all the same.”