Self-Improvement

10 Chinese Proverbs that Will Shift Your Perspective 180 Degrees

Published on February 17, 2019

As we all know, the Chinese are one of the earliest people to have existed on this earth. Their civilization is the possessor of written manuscripts which are older than 3,500 years.

In all these years, the rich culture of the Chinese has been highly reputed for its words of wisdom which could teach a lot to the world.

Let the wisdom from these 10 proverbs of the Chinese people influence your life and make you a better person.

1. ‘One Happiness Scatters a Thousand Sorrows’

Things that make us sad occur more frequently than those that make us happy. Yet, happiness is ever more powerful than sorrow. One moment of happiness can make us endure an entire lifetime of sorrow.

2. “You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head, but you can prevent them making a nest in your hair.”

In life, sadness is bound to come your way and affect you. It’s up to you whether you will hold onto them or learn from them and move forward in life, leaving those sorrows in the past.

3. “He Who Sacrifices His Conscience to Ambition Burns a Picture to Obtain the Ashes.”

If you only have an ambition and no conscience to lead you to it, you are actually being blind. Your conscience is what makes you see the entire picture of the world and your life within it. You can never reach your destination unless you clearly see where you are going.

4. “An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break. May you be open to each thread that comes into your life, the golden ones and coarse ones- and may you weave them into a brilliant and beautiful life.”

We only meet people whom we are destined to meet in life. With some, we have happy memories and, with others, we have sore ones. No matter what, we can never deny the relationships we have in life. Not even the bad ones. We can only learn from them and use that wisdom along with the happy ones to make our life more meaningful.

5. “A person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.”

If you give up on something, it means that you are approaching it negatively or maybe you are just not trying hard enough. In that case, you must never let your negativity affect the one who is putting in all the positive efforts to get something done that you never thought was possible.

6. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

When you are moving towards your goal, it is absolutely alright to not rush into it and move slowly. It’s rather better that you are taking your time to think through your actions. However, you must keep on moving steadily. Slowness is never a problem unless you stop on your tracks.

7. “The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

Great things are never achieved at once. Anything great requires a lot of perseverance on the doer’s end. You have to keep doing a bit of what you want to do every day and never get tired of seeing the amount of work that is left. Steadily concentrating on the bits will inevitably give you the whole one day. It’s just about time and devotion.

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8. “Everyone sees the violence of the swollen river. Few see the violence of the embankments that constrain it.”

Even though we can easily see the expressions on the surface, it is not always easy to see the cause. Sometimes when someone apparently does something wrong on the outside, it might have been caused by a greater but invisible wrong. It is important for us to keep our eyes and minds open at all times.

9. “Great winds are powerless to disturb the water of a deep well.”

If you are content with yourself deep within, the storms that ruffle you from the outside will actually not affect your sense of who you are.

10. “Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”

Peace comes to you only when you realize who you truly are. Unless you know yourself from within, you are bound to remain anxious about all that you could be.

In these times of extreme violence and hatred, incorporating this wisdom into our lives can be the first step to a better world.