福兮祸所伏

福兮禍所伏
fúxīhuòsuǒfú
phrase

Meanings

  1. 1 within fortune lies misfortune
  2. 2 good luck is where disaster is hiding
  3. 3 Daoist warning that prosperity breeds its opposite

Examples

Tā zhòngle dà jiǎng què fǎn'ér pòchǎn, zhèng yìngle fú xī huò suǒ fú.
He won the jackpot and then went broke — 'in fortune lies misfortune' proved true.
Gǔrén shuō fú xī huò suǒ fú, shùnlì shí gèng yào bǎochí jǐngtì.
The ancients said fortune harbors misfortune — when things go well, stay all the more alert.

Tips

history
From 《道德》 (Dao De Jing) chapter 58 by Laozi (老子): — 'Disaster is what fortune leans on; fortune is where disaster is crouching.' A core Daoist statement that opposites generate each other and no situation is stable. The abbreviated form drops the .
usage
Almost always paired with ('in disaster, fortune rests'). (xī) is a literary exclamation marker from classical verse — no modern meaning. The full Laozi couplet is the philosophical backbone of the chengyu ('the old man on the frontier lost his horse').

Stroke Order

huò
suǒ