登泰山而小天下

dēngtàishānérxiǎotiānxià
phrase

Meanings

  1. 1 climb Mt. Tai, and the world below seems small
  2. 2 broadened vision makes everything formerly imposing feel minor
  3. 3 lit. climb Mt. Tai and — make the world small

Examples

Zhēnzhèng de xuézhě dēng Tài Shān ér xiǎo tiānxià, xiōnghuái zìrán kāikuò.
True scholars "climb Mt. Tai and find the world small" — their horizons naturally widen.
Yóulì le duō guó zhīhòu, tā zhēn yǒu dēng Tài Shān ér xiǎo tiānxià de gǎnjué.
After traveling through many countries, he truly had the feeling of "climbing Mt. Tai and finding the world small".

Tips

history
From 《孟子·尽心》 (Mencius 7A.24): 孔子泰山小天 — 'Confucius climbed Mt. Dong and found Lu small; he climbed Mt. Tai and found all under heaven small.' Mencius's parable about how higher vantage points reshape one's sense of scale — used today as a metaphor for intellectual breadth.
usage
here is a causative verb in classical Chinese: 'to make X small / to perceive X as small' — not the ordinary adjective 'small'. Always cited together with in the original Mencius passage.

Stroke Order

dēng
tài
shān
ér
xiǎo
tiān
xià