Famous Quotations (名句) · 915 Chinese classical lines

不知今夕何夕 #59,534

bù zhī jīn xī hé xī

not knowing what night tonight is / so transported that one loses track of the date / (lit.) not know tonight-is-what-night

除非己莫为 #60,937

chúfēi jǐ mò wéi

unless you don't do it yourself (it cannot be kept secret) — the only way to keep a wrong hidden is never to commit it / literally: unless oneself does not do (it)

春风吹又生 #61,939

chūnfēng chuī yòu shēng

when the spring wind blows, it grows again / irrepressible vitality / something that revives no matter how often it is cut down

天生我材必有用 #63,007

Tiān shēng wǒ cái bì yǒu yòng

heaven made me with talent — there must be a use for it / since heaven endowed me, my gifts must find their purpose

飞流直下三千尺 #71,182

fēi liú zhí xià sān qiān chǐ

the flying torrent plunges straight down three thousand feet / vivid hyperbole for a towering waterfall

先天下之忧而忧 #73,324

xiān tiānxià zhī yōu ér yōu

to worry about the world's troubles before anyone else worries / to put the country's concerns before one's own

良药苦口利于病 #74,180

Liáng yào kǔ kǒu lì yú bìng

good medicine tastes bitter but cures the illness / harsh advice heals; comforting words don't / the truth hurts and helps

野火烧不尽 #81,728

yěhuǒ shāo bú jìn

wildfire cannot burn it out — impossible to completely wipe out, will always grow back / literally: wild fire cannot burn it exhaustively

哀民生之多艰

āi mínshēng zhī duō jiān

to grieve at the many hardships of the people's lives / compassion for common suffering / Qu Yuan's lament for the common people

暧暧远人村

ài ài yuǎn rén cūn

dim and faint, the distant villages of men / (fig.) the hazy, half-visible houses in the far distance of a peaceful pastoral scene / (lit.) dim-dim far human village

安得广厦千万间

ān dé guǎng shà qiān wàn jiān

how could I obtain ten million grand houses — an anguished wish that all the poor might have shelter / literally: how to get spacious mansions, thousands and ten-thousands of rooms

安能摧眉折腰事权贵

ān néng cuī méi zhé yāo shì quánguì

how could I bow my brow and bend my waist to serve the powerful? / (fig.) a defiant refusal to grovel before authority; uncompromising integrity / (lit.) how-can crush-brow bend-waist serve power-nobility

安知鱼之乐

Ān zhī yú zhī lè

how do you know the joy of fish? / (fig., philosophical) the problem of other minds — how can we know another's inner experience? / (lit.) how — know — fish — 's — joy

暗香浮动月黄昏

àn xiāng fú dòng yuè huánghūn

a hidden fragrance drifts on the dusk under the moon / the exquisite, almost imperceptible beauty of plum blossom at twilight (figurative) / hidden scent floats-moves moon dusk (literal)

八千里路云和月

bā qiān lǐ lù yún hé yuè

eight thousand li of road under cloud and moon / long years of hard travel and struggle / Yue Fei's image of a soldier's lifetime campaign

八月十八潮

bā yuè shíbā cháo

the great tidal bore of the eighth month, eighteenth day / the famous Qiantang River tidal bore / (lit.) the tide of the eighteenth of the eighth month

巴山夜雨涨秋池

Bā Shān yè yǔ zhǎng qiū chí

night rain on Ba Mountain swells the autumn pond / Li Shangyin's line of separation — writing back north from rainy Sichuan, the rain comes to stand for homesickness itself

把酒话桑麻

bǎ jiǔ huà sāng má

raising a cup and chatting about mulberry and hemp / drinking wine and making small talk about farming / rustic pastoral camaraderie with old friends

把酒问青天

Bǎ jiǔ wèn qīngtiān

raising a cup of wine to ask the blue heavens / putting a question to the sky, wine in hand

白了少年头

bái le shàonián tóu

youthful hair has turned white / to waste one's youth in inaction or grief / (lit.) whitened the youth's head

白日依山尽

Bái rì yī shān jìn

the white sun leans against the mountains and is gone / the sun sets behind the ranges / lit. white sun — against the mountain — finishes

白雪歌送武判官归京

Báixuě Gē Sòng Wǔ Pànguān Guī Jīng

Song of the White Snow, seeing Judge Wu off on his return to the capital / (fig.) a canonical frontier-farewell poem title of the Tang / (lit.) white-snow song seeing-off Wu judge returning capital

百万雄师过大江

bǎiwàn xióngshī guò dàjiāng

a million-strong valiant army crosses the great river / the decisive crossing of the Yangtze in April 1949 / image of an overwhelming, history-turning advance

板荡识诚臣

bǎndàng shí chéngchén

in troubled times one knows the loyal minister / (fig.) true character is revealed only in adversity / (lit.) turmoil recognizes the honest official

半亩方塘一鉴开

bàn mǔ fāng táng yī jiàn kāi

half an acre of square pond opens like a mirror / Zhu Xi's image of the clear mind — a pond so still it reflects sky and cloud perfectly

报得三春晖

bào dé sān chūn huī

repay the warmth of three-month spring sunshine / children can never fully repay a mother's love / closing line of Meng Jiao's 'Song of the Wandering Son'

报之以琼琚

bào zhī yǐ qióngjū

repay it with a jade pendant / (fig.) to return a kindness with something far more precious than was given / (lit.) repay it with jade-pendant

爆竹声中一岁除

Bàozhú shēng zhōng yī suì chú

amid firecracker sounds, another year passes / evokes the Lunar New Year / opening line of Wang Anshi's poem 'New Year's Day'

北方有佳人

Běifāng yǒu jiārén

in the north there is a beautiful woman / (fig.) the canonical opener for an unmatched beauty; a country-toppling beauty / (lit.) north-direction has fine-person

背灼炎天光

bèi zhuó yán tiān guāng

their backs scorched by the blazing sun / (fig.) depiction of peasants' brutal toil in the midsummer harvest / (lit.) back seared (by) flaming-sky light

915 quotations