15 Ancient Chinese Proverbs About Life (2000+ Years of Wisdom)

Many twists and turns

Literal: One wave three turns

Wang Xizhi, writing on brush method, said that in making a single wave-stroke (一波) the brush turns three times (三折) — the long diagonal that ends a character is not one movement but three changes of direction, and a stroke drawn straight is dead. The phrase left calligraphy for narrative and now des...

Push far enough and it turns

Literal: Things at extreme reverse

When a thing (物) reaches its extreme (极) it must (必) turn back (反). The formula is put most plainly in the Lüshi Chunqiu, which argues that the ruler should not occupy the complete, the extreme or the full, because what is complete will be broken, what is extreme will reverse, and what is full will ...

Misfortune might be a blessing

Literal: Old man loses horse

The Huainanzi tells of a man living out by the frontier, known ever since as the Old Man of the Frontier — 塞翁, from 塞, a border pass, and 翁, an old man. His horse (马) was lost (失), simply ran off. His neighbours came to console him and he asked how they knew it was not good fortune; the horse return...

Things happen when ready

Literal: Melon ripe stem falls

When the melon (瓜) is ripe (熟), the stem (蒂) drops (落) of itself. The observation is agricultural and precise: a melon taken early has to be pulled, and one left to its time separates without force. The phrase is used of anything that cannot usefully be hurried — a negotiation, a diagnosis, a decisi...

Hope appears in darkness

Literal: Dark willows bright flowers

This comes from Lu You's Visiting a Village West of the Mountains, of the Southern Song: 山重水复疑无路，柳暗花明又一村 — where the hills fold and the streams double back and there seems to be no road, the willows darken (柳暗) and the flowers brighten (花明), and there is another village. The turn arrives at the mome...

At home anywhere

Literal: Four seas become home

The four seas (四海) taken as one's home (家). It appears in the Records of the Grand Historian, in a builder's justification of an enormous palace: the Son of Heaven takes all within the four seas as his household, so the grandeur is not extravagance but scale. That imperial sense has thinned. It now ...

Moderation in all things

Literal: Excess equals deficiency

Zigong asked Confucius which of two disciples was the better; one went too far and one fell short. Asked whether going too far was therefore better, Confucius answered 过犹不及 — overshooting (过) is just like (犹) falling short (不及). The point is that they are the same kind of error, not that one is pref...

Contentment with what one has brings happiness

Literal: Know enough constant happiness

The Daodejing supplies the thought in several places: there is no calamity greater than not knowing when one has enough, and the contentment that knows enough (知足) is enough for good (常乐). The claim is stronger than an argument for modest living — it is that sufficiency is a judgement rather than a ...

Choose simpler pleasures over status displays

Literal: Peaceful walking substitutes carriage

This is from the Strategies of the Warring States, where the scholar Yan Chu declines the patronage of King Xuan of Qi. Offered position and a carriage, he answers that he would rather eat late so that plain food tastes like meat, and walk unhurried (安步) so that walking serves as (当) a carriage (车)....

Live peacefully and work happily

Literal: Peaceful dwelling happy occupation

Settled in one's dwelling (安居) and content in one's work (乐业). The pairing covers the two halves of an ordinary life, house and livelihood, and Chinese political language has used it for two thousand years as the plain statement of what government is for. That is what gives it its weight: it is a mo...

Weathered profound life transformations

Literal: Fully experience seas to mulberry fields

沧桑 is short for 沧海桑田, the blue sea and the mulberry fields. Ge Hong's account of the immortal Ma Gu has her mention, in passing, that since entering service she has three times seen the Eastern Sea turn into mulberry fields — the scale is the whole point of the remark, and it is where the phrase get...

Profound transformations over time

Literal: Blue sea mulberry field

This comes from the account of the immortal Magu, who remarks that she has three times seen the eastern sea turn to mulberry fields — the blue sea (沧海) becoming farmland (桑田). The measure is deliberately inhuman: what she reports as a recurring observation is beyond any mortal lifetime. Change so co...

Let nature take its course

Literal: Follow its natural course

Going along with (顺) the way things are of themselves (自然). 自然 is literally self-so, what a thing is when nothing is being done to it, and the phrase belongs to the Daoist argument that intervention usually costs more than it returns. It is not passivity and Chinese does not use it that way: it is a...

Naturally; as a matter of course

Literal: What reason dictates as natural

What principle (理) makes (所) properly (当) so (然). 理 is the grain or pattern of a thing, the reason it is as it is, so the phrase claims that something follows from the nature of the case rather than from anybody's preference. That is a strong claim, and it is often made too cheaply, which is why the...

Feel at ease with a clear conscience

Literal: Heart at peace, reason satisfied

The heart (心) at rest (安) because the reasoning (理) holds up (得). The two halves stand in a stated relation: the calm is not a temperament but a consequence, and it is available only to somebody who has actually checked. That is what makes the phrase useful, and also what makes it available for sarc...