人之初,性本善

Mandarin · pinyin rén zhī chū , xìng běn shàn

Meanings

  1. man at birth is fundamentally good in nature (the first two lines of Three Character Classic 三字經 Sān zì Jīng)
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Characters in this entry

人
rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
之
zhī · marks preceding phrase as modifier of following phrase; it, him her, them; go to
初
chū · beginning, initial, primary
性
xìng · nature, character, sex
本
běn · root, origin, source; basis
善
shàn · good, virtuous, charitable, kind
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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人之初,性本善 · ren2 zhi1 chu1 , xing4 ben3 shan4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 5,672
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record人之初,性本善 人之初,性本善 [ren2 zhi1 chu1 , xing4 ben3 shan4] /man at birth is fundamentally good in nature (the first two lines of Three Character Classic 三字經|三字经[San1 zi4 Jing1])/