"In its 4,000-year civilized history, the Chinese have generated innumerable proverbs. There can be a proverb for almost any situation. Judicious use of proverbs in Chinese writing is regarded as a sign of good education rather than pedantry or showing off one’s knowledge of clichés."
"Chinese proverbs can be split into chengyu (accepted phrases), yanyu (familiar sayings), suyu (popular sayings), and xiehouyu (two-part allegorical sayings). Unique to the Chinese language, xiehouyu proverbs are vivid with images and dramatic results."
— Excerpt from Haiwang Yuan, The Magic Lotus Lantern and Other Tales from the Han Chinese. Libraries Unlimited, 2006)
Here is our selected collection of Chinese Proverbs:
Better go than send.
Better go to heaven in rags than to hell in embroidery.
Better to do a kindness near home than go far away to burn incense.
Count not what is lost but what is left.
Defeat isn't bitter if you don't swallow it.
Dig a well before you are thirsty.
Do not anxiously hope for that which is not yet come; do not vainly regret what is already past.
Don't stand by the water and long for fish; go home and weave a net.
Easy to believe in heaven's law, but so hard to keep.
Easy to know men's faces, not their hearts.
Four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.
Happy people never count hours as they pass.
If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
If you have never done anything evil, you should not be worrying about devils knocking at your door.
It is easier to know how to do than it is to do.
It is not the knowing that is difficult, but the doing.
Keep your chin up.
Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.
Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back.
The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water moulds itself to the pitcher.
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