10 Chinese Idioms Perfect for New Year Resolutions

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 ...

Practice what you know

Literal: Knowledge and action unite as one

Wang Yangming reached his enlightenment in exile at Longchang in Guizhou in 1508, and began teaching this doctrine the following year, when he was invited to head the academy at Guiyang: knowing (知) and acting (行) are one (合一) rather than two stages. His claim is stronger than an exhortation to put ...

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...

Effort is eventually repaid

Literal: Heaven's way rewards diligence

Heaven's way (天道) repays (酬) diligence (勤). 酬 is the word for requiting a debt or returning a toast, so the claim is transactional: the effort is owed something, and the universe is the party that settles. That is a stronger position than simply hoping hard work pays off, and it is close to the argu...

Progress needs constant effort

Literal: Boat moving against current

A boat (舟) worked (行) against (逆) the current (水). The phrase is nearly always completed by its second half — 不进则退, if you do not advance you fall back — and that clause is the whole argument. What makes the image exact is that holding position is not a rest state: the river is doing work on the hul...

Foresee big from small signs

Literal: See small know large

The Han Feizi observes that the sage sees (见) the minute (微) and thereby knows what is sprouting, sees the beginning and thereby knows the end — to catch the small sign is to know (知) the large development (著) it precedes. The skill named is not prediction but attention: the evidence was there the w...

Fortune finally turns your way

Literal: Time comes and fortune turns

The hour arrives (时来) and the luck turns (运转). Both halves assume a wheel: fortune in this vocabulary is not distributed but cyclical, so a bad stretch is a position on the turn rather than a settled condition. That is the consolation being offered. It belongs to ordinary speech and to fortune-telli...

Create new from old

Literal: Push old produce new

Pushing out (推) the stale (陈) so that the new (新) can come forth (出). The early sense is physical, used of the body and of stored grain long before it meant anything about art or policy: clearing what has gone old to make room. That history settles what the phrase does not mean. The old is displaced...

Success after long preparation

Literal: Thick accumulation thin launch

This is from Su Shi of the Song dynasty, who advised a friend to observe widely but take sparingly, to accumulate thickly and release thinly — 博观而约取，厚积而薄发. Deep (厚) accumulation (积) should issue in slight (薄) output (发). The counsel is against publishing early and often: what is put out should be a ...

Linking tradition with innovation

Literal: Receive past, initiate future

To carry on (承) what came before (前) and open the way for (启) what follows (后). Both verbs are transitive and the phrase names a position rather than an achievement — the person or work is the joint between two periods, and its value lies in belonging fully to neither. Chinese literary and intellect...