Chinese Proverbs

Inspiring Quotes

When you want to test the depths of a stream, don’t use both feet.
—Chinese Proverb

It is the beautiful bird that gets caged.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Beauty

When you go to dig a grave for your enemy, dig two.
—Chinese Proverb

A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.
—Chinese Proverb

When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.
—Chinese Proverb

If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain.
If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees.
If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.
—Chinese Proverb

It is always easier for one man to solve another man’s problem.
—Chinese Proverb

One cannot manage too many affairs: like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other.
—Chinese Proverb

A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.
—Chinese Proverb

Practice no vice because it’s trivial… Neglect no virtue because it’s so.
—Chinese Proverb

The journey is the reward.
—Chinese Proverb

Do not anxiously hope for what is not yet to come; do not vainly regret what is already past.
—Chinese Proverb

Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.
—Chinese Proverb

Those who cause divisions, in order to injure other people; are in fact preparing pitfalls for their own ruin.
—Chinese Proverb

I dreamed a thousand new paths… I woke and walked my old one.
—Chinese Proverb

Talk doesn’t cook rice.
—Chinese Proverb

If you always give, you will always have.
—Chinese Proverb

Never try to catch two frogs with one hand.
—Chinese Proverb

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
—Chinese Proverb

To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.
—Chinese Proverb

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the really great man is the man who makes every man feel great.
—Chinese Proverb

He who has seen little marvels much.
—Chinese Proverb

Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time.
—Chinese Proverb

He who hurries can not walk with dignity.
—Chinese Proverb

Man fools himself. He prays for a long life, and he fears an old age.
—Chinese Proverb

One does not insult the river god while crossing the river.
—Chinese Proverb

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.
—Chinese Proverb

If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Encouragement, Prosperity

Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own.
—Chinese Proverb

A little impatience…|Big plans ruined.
—Chinese Proverb

There is many a good man to be found under a shabby hat.
—Chinese Proverb

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Growth

Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Carpe-Diem

Who thinks an inch, but talks a yard, needs a kick in the foot.
—Chinese Proverb

Don’t curse the darkness — light a candle.
—Chinese Proverb

There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.
—Chinese Proverb

The conquerors are kings; the defeated are bandits.
—Chinese Proverb

If you know what you know and know what you don’t know-that is true wisdom.
—Chinese Proverb

Flowers leave their fragrance on the hand that bestows them.
—Chinese Proverb

Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.
—Chinese Proverb

The door to virtue is heavy and hard to push.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Virtue

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
—Chinese Proverb

Simplicity of character is the most natural result of profound thought.
—Chinese Proverb

Take a second look … it costs you nothing.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Caution

The tongue is like a sharp knife; it kills without drawing blood.
—Chinese Proverb

When you put on your clothes, remember the weaver’s labor; when you take your daily food, remember the husbandman’s work.
—Chinese Proverb

If you want your dinner, don’t offend the cook.
—Chinese Proverb

If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.
—Chinese Proverb

A single kind word keeps one warm for three winters.
—Chinese Proverb

You can’t clap with one hand.
—Chinese Proverb

There is but one way to be born but a hundred ways to die.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Death

If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.
—Chinese Proverb

With money you can buy a house, but not a home.
—Chinese Proverb

True love never grows old.
—Chinese Proverb

A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Smiling

A book is like a garden carried in a pocket.
—Chinese Proverb

The dog in the kennel barks at his fleas; the dog that hunts does not feel them.
—Chinese Proverb

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
—Chinese Proverb

When a finger points to the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.
—Chinese Proverb

Win your lawsuit and lose your money.
—Chinese Proverb

A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.
—Chinese Proverb

The roast duck can fly no more.
—Chinese Proverb

Get the coffin ready and the man won’t die.
—Chinese Proverb

I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.
—Chinese Proverb

Spring is sooner recognized by plants than by men.
—Chinese Proverb

The rich add riches to riches; the poor add years to years.
—Chinese Proverb

Patience is power; with time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes silk.
—Chinese Proverb

Towers are measured by their shadows, and men of merit by those who are envious of them.
—Chinese Proverb

Men in the game are blind to what men looking on see clearly.
—Chinese Proverb

When one dog barks at a shadow, a hundred bark at the sound.
—Chinese Proverb

Water and words, easy to pour, impossible to recover.
—Chinese Proverb

Don’t climb a tree to look for fish.
—Chinese Proverb

Gold cannot be pure, and people cannot be perfect.
—Chinese Proverb

A closed mind is like a closed book, just a block of wood.
—Chinese Proverb

Great doubts deep wisdom… Small doubts little wisdom.
—Chinese Proverb

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
—Chinese Proverb

Slander cannot destroy the man … when the flood recedes, the rock is there.
—Chinese Proverb

What you cannot avoid, welcome.
—Chinese Proverb

Elephant tusks cannot grow out of a dog’s mouth.
—Chinese Proverb

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
—Chinese Proverb

Words are just words and without heart they have no meaning.
—Chinese Proverb

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
—Chinese Proverb

Only the rich have distant relatives.
—Chinese Proverb

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
—Chinese Proverb

Climb mountains to see lowlands.
—Chinese Proverb

If there is light in the soul,
There will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
There will be harmony in the house.
If there is harmony in the house,
There will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.
—Chinese Proverb

When the tiger comes down from the mountain|to the plains, it is bullied by the dogs.
—Chinese Proverb

You scale the mountain if you would view the plain.
—Chinese Proverb