Great social changes took place during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. This spurred great cultural development. In these periods, there appeared many great thinkers, such as Laozi, Zhuangzi, Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Mozi and Hanfeizi. They stated their views on society from different standpoint and angles, and gradually formed schools of philosophy represented mainly by Taoist, Confucianist, Mohist and Legalist schools. These numerous schools and their representatives came to be known as the "Hundred Schools of Thought and their exponents".

Laozi was the founder of Taoist School, and wrote Tao Te Ching - the Classic of the Way and Virtue. He deemed that all things have their opposites; for example, fortune and misfortune, existence and non-existence, life and death, nobility and baseness, high and low, strong and weak are all pairs of opposite aspect of a unity and can be transformed into each other. Zhung Zhou is another famous figure of Taoist School, and he is also called Zhuangzi. In his book - titled The Book of Zhuangzi, there are many interesting stories. Using these stories, Zhuangzi expressed his love of nature.

Mozi initiated Mohist School. He encouraged frugalitu and combated waste. He advocated choosing noble-minded and talented people to be officails to govern people. And he called on people to love each other and eschew war.

The most important representative of Legalist School was Hanfeizi, who wrote The Book of Hanfeizi. He advocated ruling the country by means of strictly enforced laws. He deemed that the law should be promulgated to the whole state and people should abide by the law in a very strict way. He emphasized the use of severe punishment for rebellious people. He advocated reforms and was in favor of a centralized autocratic monarchy. His theories were later adopted by Emperor Qinshihuang, first unifier in China.