So I’m researching some good Chinese Proverbs for some essays I am writing. 

Yeah it’s tacky but being Chinese I can get away with it.  I didn’t find the one that I was looking for but thought I would share some of the gems that I came across.  Enjoy.  PS.  You can find the rest here.

  • A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.  (Contrarian investors take heart.)
  • An inch of time cannot be bought with an inch of gold.
  • Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
  • Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.
  • Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.
  • Biggest profits mean gravest risks. (Yes, the Chinese very clearly understood the concept of Beta.)
  • Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.
  • Do not employ handsome servants.   (Luckily I don’t think I’ll ever make enough to afford servants.)
  • Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend’s forehead.  (An real proverb that works just as well as a SNL joke)
  • Experience is a comb which nature gives to men when they are bald.
  • Great souls have wills; feeble ones have only wishes.
  • He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
  • If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
  • If you are poor, though you dwell in the busy marketplace, no one will inquire about you; if you are rich, though you dwell in the heart of the mountains, you will have distant relatives.
  • If you suspect a man, don’t employ him, and if you employ him, don’t suspect him.  (So the ancient Chinese also had well developed HR best practices)
  • If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.  (Ditto)
  • If your strength is small, don’t carry heavy burdens. If your words are worthless, don’t give advice.  (Maybe I should stop blogging)
  • Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome.
  • It is later than you think.  (So Saruman the Wise was Chinese!)
  • Man is the head of the family, woman the neck that turns the head.  (I’m sure Katy agrees with that one.)
  • Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time. (It has better be some pretty damn good roast duck)
  • Of all the thirty-six alternatives, running away is best.
  • Talk doesn’t cook rice.  (I have to remember to use in my negotiations sometimes)
  • The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.
  • The greatest conqueror is he who overcomes the enemy without a blow.
  • There are two perfectly good men, one dead, and the other unborn.
  • To understand your parents’ love you must raise children yourself.
  • When you cease to strive to understand, then you will know without understanding.
  • With true friends… even water drunk together is sweet enough.
  • With virtue you can’t be entirely poor; without virtue you can’t really be rich.

(more…)