8 Chinese Idioms About Greed & Excess
Cautionary Chinese idioms about greed, excess, and the dangers of always wanting more.
Chinese wisdom strongly warns against greed and excess. These idioms describe the many faces of avarice and its inevitable consequences - from never being satisfied to losing everything.
好逸恶劳
hào yì wù láoShirk effort by preference
Literal: Love ease hate work
To love (好) ease (逸) and hate (恶) toil (劳). The two verbs are the point: this is not laziness as a failing of will but as a preference, something the phrase presents as the ordinary human default rather than a vice peculiar to the person being described. That makes it a diagnosis more than an insult...
Example
The team's productivity suffered from members who avoided challenging tasks
团队中有人喜欢偷懒避难，影响了工作效率
近水楼台
jìn shuǐ lóu táiAdvantage from close connections
Literal: Pavilion close to water
Su Lin, a minor officer under Fan Zhongyan, was passed over while Fan promoted others around him, and presented a couplet instead of a complaint: 近水楼台先得月，向阳花木易为春 — the tower (楼台) nearest (近) the water (水) gets the moon first, and flowers facing the sun come to spring early. Fan took the point and pr...
Example
Living in the city gave her more career opportunities
住在城市给了她更多的职业机会
偷梁换柱
tōu liáng huàn zhùDeceive by substitution
Literal: Steal beam swap pillar
This is the twenty-fifth of the Thirty-Six Stratagems: stealing (偷) the beams (梁) and swapping (换) the pillars (柱) while the building still stands. The substitution is made inside a structure that keeps its outward form, so that nothing appears to have changed until weight is put on it. A quiet swap...
Example
The investigation revealed that key data had been subtly altered
调查显示关键数据被巧妙地篡改了
一叶障目
yī yè zhàng mùMiss big picture
Literal: Leaf blocks eye
This descends from the Heguanzi, which observes that a single leaf before the eyes hides the mountain, and two beans in the ears hide the thunder — 一叶蔽目，不见泰山. One (一) leaf (叶) blocks (障) the eye (目) not because it is large but because it is close. The obstruction is trivial and the loss of view is t...
Example
The team got lost in technical details and forgot the project's main goal
团队陷入技术细节而忘记了项目的主要目标
借花献佛
jiè huā xiàn fóMake a gift of something that isn't yours
Literal: Borrow flower offer Buddha
The Buddhist life of the Buddha's former births has the young Sumedha, wanting to make an offering to the buddha Dipankara and owning nothing, buy flowers from a girl who gives them on condition that she share the merit. Borrowing flowers (借花) to offer to the Buddha (献佛) is therefore not condemned i...
Example
He took credit for the team's work during the presentation
他在演示中把团队的工作据为己有
自相矛盾
zì xiāng máo dùnContradict oneself
Literal: Spear shield contradict self
Han Feizi tells of a man of Chu selling weapons who said of his shields that nothing could pierce them, and of his spears that there was nothing they could not pierce. A bystander asked what would happen if one of his spears were used against one of his shields, and he had no answer. Hence spear (矛)...
Example
The policy's conflicting requirements made implementation impossible
政策中相互矛盾的要求使得实施变得不可能
出类拔萃
chū lèi bá cuìExcellence that outshines all others
Literal: Out of the kind, above the gathered
This one comes from the Mencius, where Confucius is described as having come out from his kind and risen above the gathered crowd — 出于其类，拔乎其萃. To emerge (出) from one's category (类) and stand above (拔) the assembly (萃) is not to be better at the same thing but to be no longer comparable. Somebody who...
Example
Her research paper was clearly superior to all others submitted to the conference
她的研究论文明显优于提交给会议的所有其他论文
不相上下
bù xiāng shàng xiàEvenly matched with neither superior
Literal: Not mutually up down
Not (不) mutually (相) above and below (上下). Chinese ranks by verticality, so denying both directions denies the ranking itself — the claim is not that two things are similar but that no order can be established between them. Competitors, candidates and rival products, and it is genuinely neutral, whi...
Example
The two championship finalists were so evenly matched that predicting a winner was impossible
两位冠军决赛选手势均力敌，无法预测谁会获胜
Quick Reference
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