12 Most Famous Chinese Proverbs — Meanings & Origins Explained

Unshakeable despite adversity

Literal: Broken a hundred times, never bending

Cai Yong wrote it on Qiao Xuan's memorial stele: his nature was grave, he disliked show and held to the plain, and he had the bearing of a man who could be broken (折) a hundred (百) times and would not (不) bend (挠), who faced a crisis and could not be moved from his ground. 折 is setbacks rather than ...

Persistence achieves anything

Literal: Water drops pierce stone

The Song collection Helin Yulu attaches this to the magistrate Zhang Guaiya, who had a clerk flogged for a single copper coin, was told he would not dare behead him for it, and wrote the judgment before doing exactly that: a coin a day is a thousand coins in a thousand days, and 绳锯木断，水滴石穿 — a rope u...

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...

Accept all with open mind

Literal: Sea accepts hundred rivers

The sea (海) takes in (纳) a hundred (百) rivers (川) and is still the sea — that is the whole argument, and it is why the image is the sea and not a lake. The line is Lin Zexu's, the first half of a couplet normally quoted whole: 海纳百川，有容乃大；壁立千仞，无欲则刚 — the sea admits a hundred rivers, and capacity is wh...

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...

Success through persistence

Literal: Iron rod becomes needle

Li Bai, the story goes, had given up on his studies and was walking away when he met an old woman grinding down an iron pestle (铁杵). Asked what she was doing, she said she was making a needle (针). He went back to his books. The tale is attached to a stream near Meizhou and is told mainly to children...

Keep promises faithfully

Literal: One promise thousand gold

Ji Bu of the early Han was reliable enough that a saying circulated in Chu: a hundred catties of gold are worth less than one promise (一诺) from Ji Bu — hence a promise worth a thousand (千) in gold (金). The Records of the Grand Historian preserves it. He is not Ji Zha of Wu, whose story about keeping...

Perfect artistic understanding between friends

Literal: High mountain flowing water

The Liezi records that Bo Ya played the qin and Zhong Ziqi listened. When Bo Ya's mind was on high (高) mountains (山), Zhong Ziqi said: how towering, like Mount Tai. When it turned to flowing (流) water (水), he said: how vast, like the Yangtze and the Yellow River. Whatever Bo Ya had in mind, Zhong Zi...

Persistence overcomes huge obstacles

Literal: Foolish old man moves mountains

The Liezi tells of an old man of ninety whose way out was blocked by two mountains, and who began shifting (移) them (山) away a basket at a time. A widowed neighbour's small son ran over to help. The Wise Old Man of Hequ laughed at him and told him to stop, and he answered that when he died his sons ...

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 ...

After hardship comes happiness

Literal: Bitterness ends sweetness comes

The bitter (苦) exhausted (尽) and the sweet (甘) arriving (来). Both are tastes, and the phrase treats a life as something with a flavour that changes, which is gentler than the English idea of a reward for endurance: nothing is being earned, the bitterness is simply running out. That is why it console...

Grow old together; lifelong partnership

Literal: White heads together in old age

White (白) heads (头) reaching old age (老) side by side (偕). The Book of Songs supplies the wish — 及尔偕老, to grow old with you — and the white hair was added later to give it a picture. It is a blessing rather than a description: nobody says it about a marriage in progress. It is said at weddings and a...