Chinese Proverb Quotes

If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. Chinese Proverb ~ Scott Lynch

Don't listen to what they say. Go see. - Chinese proverb ~ J.W. "Bill" Marriott Jr.

Chinese proverb says that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. This journey had begun with the coercion of my body, with my own wild hope. ~ Aspen Matis

Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself - Chinese proverb ~ Colleen Collins

If we don't change the direction we're going, we're likely to end up where we're headed. Ancient Chinese proverb ~ Stacey Hall

A Chinese proverb predicts that for every man with great skill, there is a woman with great beauty. In ancient China, there are four great beauties: The first so beautiful that when fish see her reflection they forget to swim and sink. The second so beautiful that birds forget how to fly and fall. The third so beautiful that the moon refuses to shine. The fourth so beautiful that flowers refuse to bloom. I find it interesting how often beauty is shown to make the objects around it feel worse. ~ Weike Wang

A club hurts the flesh, but evil words hurt the bone. -Traditional Chinese Proverb ~ Matthew Polly

You see, calling things by their proper names is the beginning of wisdom. That's a Chinese proverb and they invented writing. The wisdom, in case you're wondering, is that when you get names right, you narrow the gap between you and the thing. ~ Zia Haider Rahman

Wealth Is Like Dung, Useful Only When Spread" - Chinese Proverb JIGGS ~ B.K. Froman

Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater. ~ Mark Twain

In this respect, the Chinese written language has a slight advantage over our own, and is perhaps symptomatic of a different way of thinking. It is still linear, still a series of abstractions taken in one at a time. But its written signs are a little closer to life than spelled words because they are essentially pictures, and, as a Chinese proverb puts it, "One showing is worth a hundred sayings." Compare, for example, the ease of showing someone how to tie a complex knot with the difficulty of telling him how to do it in words alone. ~ Alan W. Watts

Teachers open doors, but you must enter by yourself. Chinese proverb ~ David Williams

Noting that it would be a long trial, with many witnesses, I recall the old Chinese proverb, "The palest ink is better than the best memory," urging the jury to take detailed notes to aid them in their deliberations. ~ Vincent Bugliosi

Learning is like rowing upstream; not to advance is to drop back.
- Chinese proverb ~ Alvin Toffler

If your strength is small, don't carry heavy burdens. If your words are worthless, don't give advice." Chinese proverb ~ Nana Awere Damoah

It's something I call an invisible thread. It is, as the old Chinese proverb tells us, something that connects two people who are destined to meet, regardless of time and place and circumstance. Some legends call it the red string of fate; others, the thread of destiny. ~ Laura Schroff

The most difficult battles in life are those we fight within. - Old Chinese Proverb ~ Camron Wright

Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time. ~ Jules Renard

无惧无急 (The fearless do not hurry.) ~ Eric Micha'el Leventhal

He who is afraid of suffering, is already suffering fear. Out of fear, true creativity is blocked. ~ Chinese Proverb

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." ~ Chinese Proverb ~ Tim Baker

Everyone sees the violence of the swollen river.

Few see the violence of the embankments that constrain it. ~ Ancient Chinese Proverb

A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom. ~ Anonymous

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever." - Chinese proverb ~ Kevin E. Kruse

A Chinese proverb says, "Those who drink the water must remember those who dug the well." Gratitude is one of the most attractive of all personal attributes; ~ John C. Maxwell

He remembered the old Chinese proverb, sometimes ascribed to Confucius: If you sit by the river for long enough, the body of your enemy will float by. ~ Salman Rushdie

Relationships
An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.
Ancient Chinese proverb ~ Aminta Arrington

When you begin a journey of revenge, start by digging two graves: one for your enemy, and one for yourself. ~ Jodi Picoult

When a bird flies too high, it loses its song. -- Old Chinese Proverb ~ Rebecca Yount

When the father helps the son, both smile. When the son helps the father, both cry.

~ Chinese proverb ~ Simon Brooke

Never forget a man who holds a secret holds power. A Chinese proverb says: "If women want to keep a secret, one of them must die." What a splendid prospect, I thought! So far I have not heard one single encouraging word about this job. ~ John Eppler

A little fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the roses. ~ Chinese Proverb

Architecture is (in part) "the art of leaving out irrelevant details". Leaving out details, sadly, often derails into religiously ignoring details. The key word, however, is 'irrelevant': as the Chinese proverb says: people stumble over molehills, not over mountains. An architect consciously leaves out details that he or she has decided are irrelevant to the decisions to be made. ~ Gerben Wierda

Where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? - Love's Labor Lost. The eyes appears to be more immediately connected with the soul than any other organ. A woman reflects every emotion, almost every thought from her two wonderful, priceless eyes, and no feature of her face is more a telltale of her nature. "Show me," says the old Chinese proverb, "a man's eyes, and I will tell you what he might have been. Show me his mouth, and I will tell you what he has been." The same is true of women. Up to thirty or thirty-five a woman may be actress enough to make her eyes tell one tale, while her life would reveal another; but little by little the true state of a woman's soul stands forth in the expression, the frankness, the furtiveness, the candor, or the boldness ~ Harriet Hubbard Ayer

The Chinese proverb says, when sleeping women wake, mountains move. ~ Sarah Bessey

There are no endings, only beginnings that have been reborn. ~ D.B. Patterson

Keep a green tree alive in your heart, and a songbird may come to sing there. ~ Chinese Proverb

If you don't know where you're going, all roads lead there. ~ Laurence Eubank

When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, others build windmills. ~ Chinese Proverb

Allie put her chin on his shoulder to look into the carton. He had great shoulders and Chinese food. At the moment, he was the perfect man. ~ Jennifer Crusie

We did our best to conjure up the culinary staples of our culture, but since we were dependent on Chinese markets our food had an unacceptably Chinese tinge, another blow in the gauntlet of our humiliation that left us with the sweet-and-sour taste of unreliable memories, just correct enough to evoke the past, just wrong enough to remind us that the past was forever gone, missing along with the proper variety, subtlety, and complexity of our universal solvent, fish sauce. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

How come the Chinese can go where I can't go in America? Englishmen can come and set up a business in white America and do things I can't do.The Puerto Rican, Hawaiians, just about everybody can do more than black people and are more respected. ~ Muhammad Ali

China's use of 'night soil,' as the Chinese rightly call a manure that is collected after dark, is probably the reason that its soils are still healthy after four millennia of intensive agriculture, while other great civilizations - the Maya, for one - floundered when their soils turned to dust. ~ Rose George

There is, to be sure, no evil without something good. ~ Pliny The Elder

Suicide. This is the exact opposite of last time, for this time I'm experiencing a kind of pleasure in life, in being alive, a pleasure in living that I've never experienced before, and I'm hopeful and confident that I can become someone with dignity. I know now why I couldn't change certain characteristics and certain things about myself, but it's not a problem anymore. Certain pathways I failed to open in the past have now opened. My whole self is radiating light. I see with clarity. I understand the cause and effect of the last year. What I had imagined I've now attained. It's as if I can see my life right in front of my eyes, and all I have to do is reach out and draw it in... Now I don't feel the acute pain I felt before; I feel enlightened, at peace. It's as if I've instantly found the secret of "Suffering", how to bear it and how to endure it... Yes, this time I've decided to kill myself not because I can't live with suffering and not because I don't enjoy being alive. I love life passionately, and my wish to die is a wish to live...

Yes, I've chosen suicide. The endpoint of this process of "Forgiveness". Not to punish anyone or to protest a wrong. I've chosen suicide with a clarity I've never possessed before, with a rational resolve and sense of calm, in order to pursue the ultimate meaning of my life, act on my belief about the beauty between two people... I take complete responsibility for my life, and even if my physical body disappears upon death, I do ~ Qiu Miaojin

I don't care if you're gay, black, Chinese, straight. That means nothing to me. It's all an illusion. ~ Joe Rogan

Although there is a very large literature, still growing almost daily, on the Chinese calendar, its interest is, we suggest, much more archaeological and historical than scientific. ~ Joseph Needham

My fatherhood made me understand my parents and to honor them more for the love they gave. My sonhood was revealed to me in its own perfection and I understood the reason the Chinese so value filiality, the responsibility of the son to honor the parents. ~ Kent Nerburn

One of the unique features of China is that, notwithstanding the fact that it has a population of 1.3 billion, around 92% regard themselves as Han Chinese. This is quite different from the world's other most populous countries, such as India, the U.S. and Indonesia, which are ethnically diverse. ~ Martin Jacques

Appa enjoys our current prosperity with considerable hesitation, as if it were undeserved. He's given to quoting a proverb that says wealth shouldn't strike suddenly like a visitation, but instead grow gradually like a tree. ~ Vivek Shanbhag

Chinese military spending is carefully monitored by the United States. ~ Noam Chomsky

President Obama is in China now for an economic summit in Beijing. The president wore a traditional purple silk shirt along with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. That's after they taught Putin how to put a shirt ON. ~ Jimmy Fallon

An old Ukrainian proverb warns, "A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil." That is a risk we have to take. ~ Tom Robbins

The forest will answer you in the way you call to it. ~ Finnish Proverb

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue. ~ Oliver Goldsmith

Elizabeth Taylor has more chins than the Chinese telephone directory. ~ Joan Rivers

I do not know of a Chinese blogger who has gone to jail, but I know several who have had their blogs shut down. I also know some Chinese bloggers who have received threatening phone calls from police warning them to 'be careful.' In some cases, they stopped blogging for a while. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the business men said. They don't need much. ~ John Steinbeck

That car, as with the rest of Mr. Mao's lifestyle, was brand new. He had gotten rich, and gotten rich quick. But like the rest of his generation of Chinese Jay Gatsbys, the source of his wealth was murky. ~ Michael Levy

It is because of its emptiness that the cup is useful. ~ Carole Wilkinson

Don't make a fuss about a world war. At most, people die ... Half the population wiped out - this happened quite a few times in Chinese history ... It's best if half the population is left, next best one-third ... ~ Mao Zedong

Social services, not wealth per se, seem to be the key to lower birth rates. The Chinese, although among the poorest peoples of the world, have brought their fertility rate down to 2.4, partly by social coercion, but mostly by broadly available education, health care and family planning. ~ Donella Meadows

For years, American officials visiting China marvelled at how Chinese leaders could push through infrastructure projects and sweeping legislative changes without the complications of opposition and the niceties of voting. ~ Evan Osnos

But after living in Communist China for the past seventeen years, I knew that such a society was only a dream because those who seized power would invariably become the new ruling class. They would have the power to control the people's lives and bend the people's will. Because they controlled the production and distribution of goods and services in the name of the state, they would also enjoy material luxuries beyond the reach of the common people. In Communist China, details of the private lives of the leaders were guarded as state secrets. But every Chinese knew that the Party leaders lived in spacious mansions with many servants, obtained their provisions from special shops where luxury goods were made available to their household at nominal prices, and send their children in chauffeur-driven cars to exclusive schools to be taught by specially selected teachers. Even though every Chinese knew how these leaders lived, no one dared to talk about it. If we had to pass by a special shop for the military or high officials, we carefully looked the other way to avoid giving the impression we knew it was there. ~ Nien Cheng

All of the Chinese people, the Asian people say, "Oh Yao Ming, you are all the Chinese, all of Asia's hopes." That's a lot of pressure. I'm just a basketball player. ~ Yao Ming

If we expose the Chinese to our freedoms, it may create a greater hunger for democracy, reform and liberties in China. ~ Gary Locke

When Google went into China, there were some people who said they shouldn't compromise at all - that it is very bad for human rights to do so. But there were other people, particularly Chinese people, who said they were glad Google had gone in. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

I have a dream to provide every Chinese, especially children, sufficient milk each day. ~ Wen Jiabao

Did you ever hear the Oriental proverb, "The dogs bark but the caravan passes on"? Let them bark, Scarlett. I fear nothing will stop your caravan. ~ Margaret Mitchell

I'm very much involved with Asian art and its theory and practice, mainly Chinese because that was quite sophisticated. I tend to look at that more than I look the Western. ~ Brice Marden

I can understand the Chinese Wall: it was built as a defense against marauders. But a wall such as that in Berlin, built to prevent people from seeking freedom, is almost beyond comprehension. ~ Robert Kennedy

My siblings and I are known as ABCs, American-born Chinese. ~ Jennifer Lee

The president receives an inspector general's report that the Office of Personnel Management could be hacked into; they had antiquated firewalls; 23 million files have been - are in the hands of the Chinese allegedly, including, by the way, members of the press, it turns out, last week. Maybe that's the only part that's good news, so that you guys can get a feel for what it's like now to see this type of attack. ~ Jeb Bush

And now that I have been scammed once, I felt like it could not happen to me again. ~ Vann Chow

When our thousands of Chinese students abroad return home, you will see how China will transform itself. ~ Deng Xiaoping

The fastest way to get around the southern Chinese city of Foshan is on the back of a motorcycle-for-hire. ~ Evan Osnos

NIGHT SNOW

I was surprised my quilt and pillow were cold,
I see that now the window's bright again.
Deep in the night, I know the snow is thick,
I sometimes hear the sound as bamboo snaps. ~ Bai Juyi

Jackie Chan is a very good comedy/martial arts star. He does one kind of martial arts that Jet Li doesn't know how to do and Jet Li does a martial art that Jackie Chan doesn't know how to do. You can both go to two Chinese restaurants, but both can have different kinds of food. ~ Jet Li

The MSS uses two main themes in recruiting foreign nationals of Chinese ancestry. First, it appeals to their perceived obligation to help the land of their heritage, thereby exploiting sentimental feelings of ethnic pride. Second, it implies that family members still in the PRC will receive unfavorable treatment unless the subjects cooperate. The latter approach is quite stressful for the subjects and a strong motivational factor in favor of compliance. ~ Nicholas Eftimiades

I was ready when Quentin approached me after school the following day.

"Genie," he said. "Please. Let me expl - moomph!"

"Stay away," I said, mashing the bulb of garlic into his face as hard as I could. I didn't have any crosses or holy water at home. I had to work with what was available.

Quentin slowly picked the cloves out of my hand before popping them into his mouth.

"That's white vampires," he said, chewing and swallowing the raw garlic like a bite of fruit. "If I was a jiangshi you should have brought a mirror."

I wrinkled my nose. "You're going to stink now."

"What, like a Chinese?" He pursed his lips and blew a kiss at me.

Instead of being pungent, his breath was sweet with plum blossoms and coconut. Like his body magically refused to be anything but intensely appealing to me, even on a molecular level.

I tried to swat away his scent before it made me drunk. ~ F.C. Yee

If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are. ~ Zen Proverb

Chinese national Internet policy is very simple: Block and clone. ~ Michael Anti

We sometimes hear people voice doubts about opposition to sex trafficking, genital cutting, or honor killings because of their supposed inevitability. What can our good intentions achieve against thousands of years of tradition? Our response is China. A century ago, China was arguably the worst place in the world to be born female. Foot-binding, child marriage, concubinage, and female infanticide were embedded in traditional Chinese culture...So was it cultural imperialism for Westerners to criticize foot-binding and female infanticide? Perhaps. But it was also the right thing to do. If we believe firmly in certain values, such as the equality of all human beings regardless of color or gender, then we should not be afraid to stand up for them; it would be feckless to defer to slavery, torture, foot-binding, honor killings, or genital cutting just because we believe in respecting other faiths or cultures. One lesson of China is that we need not accept that discrimination is an intractable element of any society. If culture were immutable, China would still be impoverished and [women] would be stumbling around on three-inch feet. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

I may have ruined my life, but at least I got to eat some really good Chinese food. ~ Louis Sachar

You wonder what had happened, when a feller like that, in a place like that, talked of a childhood that might have as easily belonged to a millionaire, a lawyer, a schoolteacher, you. You had to think he was defective somehow, or had fucked up not once, not twice, but again and again, a peculiar resolve to his life. That was the thing, that resolve. We didn't credit it. You looked at him and your brain said he was on the losing end of one of the two bargains that America made with you. There was the romantic one, that of the rambler, the man out seeking his destiny, living by his wits, all that horseshit. Then there was the classical American dare, that you could risk all, take an internal grudge and make of it a billion dollars and get a monumental tomb in the bargain. But the truth was neither. America was a grindstone. She used those notions as twin abrasives to wear you down into a dutiful drudge walking the straight and narrow. But there was something in the hearts of the some men, some of whom became Fritz, that wouldn't accept that. These men in crummy bars, some of them, most of them, they were main-chance fellers. You could take ten of these wrecks and offer them a salesman's job, a dozen white shirts and ties, forty Gs a year and perks, a neat house on a quiet street, a yard, a car, a dog, a wife, an expense account, a Chinese laundryman, membership in a church, grandkids who'd bounce on their knees, and you'd be lucky if one or two took you up on it. And those two ~ T.D. Badyna

So far we have not convinced the Chinese authorities. My own brother was refused a visa on what was probably my last chance of seeing him when he was going around the world on a tour. Scott Nearing was similarly refused. ~ Anna Louise Strong

There's a proverb, a maxim, that runs, 'The dead man is dead; let's give a hand to the living.' Now, you say that to a man from the North, and he visualizes the scene of an accident with one dead and one injured man; it's reasonable to let the dead man be and to set about saving the injured man. But a Sicilian visualizes a murdered man and his murderer, and the living man who's to be helped is the murderer. ~ Leonardo Sciascia

Roger Daltrey had been expelled for smoking, but was still impudently showing up on campus to visit his various cronies. I'd first met him after he won a playground fight with a Chinese boy. I thought his tactics were dirty and when I shouted as much, he came over & forced me to retract. ~ Pete Townshend