Recommended Reading
- ‘500 Common Chinese Proverbs and Colloquial Expressions‘ by Liwei Jiao, Benjamin Stone
- ‘The Little Book of Chinese Proverbs‘ by Jonathan Clements
- ‘Chinese Proverbs‘ by Ruthanne Lum, Hu Yong Yi, K.L. Kiu
- ‘Chinese Illustrated Dictionary‘ by McGraw-Hill
Chinese Proverbs and Inspirational Quotes
When you go to dig a grave for your enemy, dig two.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Enemies
He who hurries can not walk with dignity.
—Chinese Proverb
When you want to test the depths of a stream, don’t use both feet.
—Chinese Proverb
If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.
—Chinese Proverb
A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Smiling, Attitude
Better a live beggar than a dead king.
—Chinese Proverb
I dreamed a thousand new paths… I woke and walked my old one.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Dreams
Who thinks an inch, but talks a yard, needs a kick in the foot.
—Chinese Proverb
A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Kindness, Happiness, Goodwill, Charity, Helpfulness, Giving
A closed mind is like a closed book, just a block of wood.
—Chinese Proverb
Talk doesn’t cook rice.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Action
It is always easier for one man to solve another man’s problem.
—Chinese Proverb
Get the coffin ready and the man won’t die.
—Chinese Proverb
The rich add riches to riches; the poor add years to years.
—Chinese Proverb
Gold cannot be pure, and people cannot be perfect.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Perfection
Men in the game are blind to what men looking on see clearly.
—Chinese Proverb
There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Vision
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Fools, Questions, Proverbs
The conquerors are kings; the defeated are bandits.
—Chinese Proverb
What you cannot avoid, welcome.
—Chinese Proverb
Water and words, easy to pour, impossible to recover.
—Chinese Proverb
Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Carpe-diem
One cannot manage too many affairs: like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Time Management, Aspirations, Goals, Management
A single kind word keeps one warm for three winters.
—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 month — get married. If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Feelings, Helpfulness, Kindness, Happiness
One does not insult the river god while crossing the river.
—Chinese Proverb
Never try to catch two frogs with one hand.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Aspirations, Goals
A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Proverbs, Wisdom, Thought, Decisions
Climb mountains to see lowlands.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Growth
He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Proverbs
If you want your dinner, don’t offend the cook.
—Chinese Proverb
One joy shatters a hundred griefs.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Proverbs, Happiness
Man fools himself. He prays for a long life, and he fears an old age.
—Chinese Proverb
With money you can buy a house, but not a home.
—Chinese Proverb
Every book must be chewed to get out its juice.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Book
Practice no vice because it’s trivial… Neglect no virtue because it’s so.
—Chinese Proverb
Don’t curse the darkness — light a candle.
—Chinese Proverb
If you always give, you will always have.
—Chinese Proverb
Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Critics, Criticism, Friendship
Patience is power; with time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.
—Chinese Proverb
Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Singing, Proverbs, Attitude
Think of your own faults the first part of the night when you are awake, and of the faults of others the latter part of the night when you are asleep.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Thought, Thinking, Thoughts
If you always give, you will always have.
—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
A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Learning
You can’t clap with one hand.
—Chinese Proverb
Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Action, Leadership, Example
Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Questions
The roast duck can fly no more.
—Chinese Proverb
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Conversation, Sin, Wisdom, Learning, Book
A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Proverbs, Simplicity
It is easier to visit your friends than to live with them.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Friendship
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. But the second best time is today.
—Chinese Proverb
A book is like a garden carried in a pocket.
—Chinese Proverb
Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Anger
Take a second look … it costs you nothing.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Caution
Slander cannot destroy the man … when the flood recedes, the rock is there.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Insults
Words are just words and without heart they have no meaning.
—Chinese Proverb
Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Teaching
Enjoy yourself–it’s later than you think.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Carpe-diem
Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Patience, Resilience, Proverbs, Growth, Progress
When a finger points to the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.
—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
When you put on your clothes, remember the weaver’s labor; when you take your daily food, remember the husbandman’s work.
—Chinese Proverb
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Attitude, Mindsets, Optimism, Positive Attitudes
A little impatience…
Big plans ruined.
—Chinese Proverb
I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.
—Chinese Proverb
Flowers leave their fragrance on the hand that bestows them.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Proverbs, Flowers, Gardening
If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
—Chinese Proverb
Don’t climb a tree to look for fish.
—Chinese Proverb
Great doubts deep wisdom… small doubts little wisdom.
—Chinese Proverb
Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Tolerance
There is but one way to be born but a hundred ways to die.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Death
When one dog barks at a shadow, a hundred bark at the sound.
—Chinese Proverb
Spring is sooner recognized by plants than by men.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Proverbs, Spring
The tongue is like a sharp knife; it kills without drawing blood.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Speech
Only the rich have distant relatives.
—Chinese Proverb
The door to virtue is heavy and hard to push.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Virtue
Learning is a treasure which accompanies its owner everywhere.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Learning
It is the beautiful bird that gets caged.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Beauty
A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties, Perfection
Towers are measured by their shadows, and men of merit by those who are envious of them.
—Chinese Proverb
True love never grows old.
—Chinese Proverb
You scale the mountain if you would view the plain.
—Chinese Proverb
If you know what you know and know what you don’t know-that is true wisdom.
—Chinese Proverb
There is many a good man to be found under a shabby hat.
—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
Those who cause divisions, in order to injure other people; are in fact preparing pitfalls for their own ruin.
—Chinese Proverb
When the tiger comes down from the mountain
to the plains, it is bullied by the dogs.
—Chinese Proverb
Elephant tusks cannot grow out of a dog’s mouth.
—Chinese Proverb
A bamboo tree grows six inches in the first nineteen years and twenty feet in its twentieth year. The best time to plant a bamboo tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Time Management
When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Memory, Proverbs, Gratitude
Do not anxiously hope for what is not yet to come; do not vainly regret what is already past.
—Chinese Proverb
He who has seen little marvels much.
—Chinese Proverb
If you always give, you will always have.
—Chinese Proverb
If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.
—Chinese Proverb
The journey is the reward.
—Chinese Proverb
Topics: Success & Failure, Achievement
Win your lawsuit and lose your money.
—Chinese Proverb
The dog in the kennel barks at his fleas; the dog that hunts does not feel them.
—Chinese Proverb