Chinese proverbs

Taiping Rebellion, battle
Taiping rebels are chased out of Yuzhuang, March 8 1854. The Taiping arrived the previous day but had to retire the next day when the Manchus arrived in hot pursuit. From Ten scenes recording the retreat and defeat of the Taiping Northern Expeditionary Forces, February 1854-March 1855. Source : web site Available under a Creative Commons license .

The nature of the Chinese language lends itself to proverbs and idioms. Just a few characters in Chinese can quickly convey a complex thought. Proverbs and sayings are a tasking study as their origins are difficult to trace; some go back thousands of years and are mentioned in the Yi Jing and Dao De Jing ancient classics.

Many proverbs relate to specific people or places in Chinese history, we have chosen to exclude these as they are hard for non-Chinese people to understand without considerable historical context; instead we have chosen proverbs and sayings that give an insight into Chinese culture and traditions.


Translating Chinese proverbs into English is not an easy task. Sometimes there is no similar meaning in English and so a translation may seem contrived. If you can help improve our efforts please let us know.

Chinese proverbs are broadly categorized as either yàn yǔ (proverbs or ‘familiar saying’) or chéng yǔ (meaning ‘become language’ usually translated as ‘idiom’ or ‘accepted saying’). The short standard form of Chengyu is made up of four characters and there are thousands of them, one for every possible situation. They are written in Classical Chinese where often one character takes the place of two or more in Modern Chinese. There are also the Súyǔ which are popular sayings and the Xiē hòu yǔ which are two part allegorical sayings that are pretty hard to translate. In the first part of a xiehouyu the situation is described and the second gives the underlying truth, so in English there is the similar ‘a bird in the hand, is worth two in the bush’ construction. Often only the first part needs to be said as the second part is implied. Puns are also used in xiehouyu adding greatly to the difficulty of translation.


Here are a few random idioms to give a flavor of the hundreds on this site. The proverbs are grouped according to theme. The same proverb may appear under several categories. Click on this bar to view the extensive group of proverbs.

Alternatively, you can find a proverb by looking through our Chinese pinyin index. As there are so many these are split into separate pages:

opera, Beijing opera, costume
China National Peking Opera Company performing the Red Haired Galloping Horse opera at Meilanfang theatre in Beijing, China Copyright © Dreamstime see image license
Fān yún fù
Conjuring clouds with one hand and rain with the other
Trying too hard to impress.
[英雄無用武之地]
Yīng xióng wú yòng wǔ zhī dì
A hero having no opportunity to display his talents
A situation where someone's undoubted talents can not be utilized.
[擢髮難數]
Zhuó fà nán shǔ
As countless as the hairs on the head
Countless. A very large number.
西 [東奔西走]
Dōng bēn xī zǒu
Busy everywhere
Be busy; bustling about.
[先發制人]
Xiān fā zhì rén
Strike first to gain the upper hand
The first side to attack/move often has the advantage. An admonishment to act now and not dither about.
Roughly equivalent to: The early bird catches the worm.
滥竽充数 [濫竽充數]
Làn yú chōng shù
Passing oneself off as a proficient Yu pipe player
Pretending to be well qualified for a job. The story is that the king of Qi loved to hear an ensemble of yu players. A lazy sponger Nanguo wanted the plum job as a yu player. He faked playing the yu in the large ensemble. It came to an end with the next king of Qi who preferred soloists rather than an ensemble and so, expecting exposure, quickly fled away.
Roughly equivalent to: Pulling a fast one.
[買櫝還珠]
Mǎi dú huán zhū
Buy the box yet return the pearls inside
To make a foolish action - the pearls were worth far more than the box. Missing the main opportunity.
Roughly equivalent to: Penny wise, pound foolish.
[言而無信]
Yán ér wú xìn
Speak but not mean it
To go back on one's word.

We also have an index of the Chinese idioms based on similarly meaning English language proverbs. So you can, for example, look up the Chinese equivalent of ‘Many hands make light work’:

China motif

Our proverbs come with full information. The modern Chinese characters are given first with links that give information on the character. As proverbs are so old you will often see them written using the traditional form of characters; so if some of the characters have been simplified the traditional form is shown in brackets and gray text. The characters are followed by the proverb (normally a chéng yǔ) in pinyin. Next, there is a crude character by character transliteration into English, followed by a more accurate English translation. If this is a Chinese proverb alluding to history the meaning may still not be clear in English, so the general meaning follows. Finally some proverbs have fairly direct English equivalents, if so the English proverb is shown.

For background on the types and history of proverbs please see our guide.

See also