15 Famous Chinese Idioms Everyone Should Know

Sudden, remarkable success

Literal: One cry startles everyone

King Zhuang of Chu spent three years on the throne issuing no orders at all. An officer put him a riddle about a bird that for three years had neither stirred its wings nor called, and the king answered that though it had not flown, when it flew it would reach the heavens, and though it had not crie...

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...

Learn many from one example

Literal: Raise one reflect three

Confucius, in the Analects, said he did not go on teaching a man who, shown one corner, could not come back (反) with the other three (三) — 举一隅不以三隅反，则不复也. The image is a square: you are given one corner and expected to supply the rest. It is a statement about what a teacher owes and what a student mu...

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...

Commit with no retreat

Literal: Break pots sink boats

In 207 BCE Xiang Yu took his army across the river to relieve Julu, and then had the boats (舟) sunk (沉) and the cooking pots (釜) smashed (破), keeping three days' rations and nothing else. The Records of the Grand Historian is explicit that this was done to show the troops they would die rather than ...

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...

Student surpasses master

Literal: Blue comes from indigo plant

Xunzi opens his chapter on learning with it: 青，取之于蓝，而青于蓝 — blue (青) is taken from (出于) the indigo plant (蓝), and is bluer than the plant. The point is the student's, not the teacher's: nothing is being criticised, and the dye is better precisely because the plant existed. Common speech runs it as 青出...

Add crucial finishing touch

Literal: Dot dragon's eyes

Zhang Sengyou painted four dragons on a temple wall in Jinling and left them without pupils, saying that if he dotted the eyes they would fly away. Pressed, he dotted two. Thunder split the wall and those two went up into the cloud; the two he had left blind were still there. The account is in Zhang...

Borrow authority to intimidate

Literal: Fox uses tiger's power

A tiger caught a fox, and the fox said heaven had made it lord of the beasts, so eating it would be defying heaven — walk behind me and see whether anything dares stand its ground. The tiger followed, the animals fled, and the tiger concluded the fox had been telling the truth. The Strategies of the...

Have clear plan beforehand

Literal: Bamboo ready in heart

This descends from Su Shi's account of the painter Wen Tong of the Northern Song, who held that to paint bamboo (竹) one must first have the finished bamboo complete within the breast (胸有成竹) — and then work fast, before the image fades. The idiom is about the completeness of the mental picture, not a...

Wait passively for luck

Literal: Guard the stump, wait for a rabbit

This Warring States period parable tells of a farmer who, after seeing a rabbit die by running into a tree stump (株), waited (待) endlessly for more rabbits (兔) at the same spot. His guard (守) of the stump became a classic example of misguided persistence and inflexible thinking. The story appeared i...

Success comes naturally

Literal: Water comes channel forms

Su Shi wrote it to a friend who was worrying ahead of events: when the water arrives (水到) the channel forms (渠成), there is no need to plan for it in advance. The image is of water finding its own course rather than an engineer cutting one. What the phrase claims is not that effort is unnecessary but...

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...

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...