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Chinese Proverbs

Visit Soochow and Hangchow; the next place
is heaven.

Heaven is away in the sky, but Soochow
and Hangchow are here below.

A good drum does not need a heavy stick.

Even the blind open their eyes (like
saucers) at money.

The conceited man stinks.

If one branch will not wave the whole
three will not wave.

衙門八字開有理無錢不能進來. The gates of a
yamen open like the figure eight.

If there are three roads keep in
the middle one.

If you don't know how, a thing is hard; if
it is hard, then you don't know how.

Better to ask oneself than to ask others.

Purse strings are the commonest ties
of friendship - Chinese sage

If you don't know your son look at his friends.

Do not hesitate to reform your faults.

He who does not do his best to gain
justice is a coward.

Don't beat your body.

The greatest pleasure in the world is
when a friend comes to visit you from
a distant land.

If you do not want anybody to know
it, do not even do it. 要想人不知莫非
自不為.

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燈臺下暗
It is dark at the foot of the
lighthouse - Japanese proverb.

He that loveths iniquity beckoneths to
misfortune: it is, as it were, the echo
answering to the voice - Japanese maxim.

He that practiseths righteousness receiveth
a blessing: it cometh as surely as the
shadow followeth the man - Ibid

When a hasty word hath once been
spoken a team of four horses may
pursue, but cannot bring it back - Ibid

Chinese proverbs:-

If you bow at all bow low.
作揖作到地 Giles 5394

Words whispered on earth sound
like thunder in heaven.

If fortune smiles - who does?
If fortune doesn't - who does?

Nature is better than a
middling doctor 不服藥勝中醫

Stay at home and reverence your
parents; why travel afar to
worship the gods?

A bottle-nosed man may be a
teetotaller, but no one will think so.

With money you can move the
gods without it you can't move a
man.

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He who rides a tiger cannot
dismount.

You can't clap hands with one
palm. Chinese of this below.

Draw your bow, but don't shoot.
So king pu fang chien

One more good man on earth is
better than an extra angel in
heaven.

Gold is tested by fire; man
by gold.

Those who have not tasted the
bitterest of life's bitters can
never appreciate the sweetest of
life's sweets.

A near neighbor is better than
a distant relation.

Words spoken in private by men are
heard by heaven like thunder before.
Ancient saying

He who looks up to heaven and has no
occasion to be ashamed need not to feel
ashamed before men -- Mencius

The less a man has seen the more
he has to wonder at. 小所見多所kuai

When I walk along with two others
they may serve as my teachers - Confucian Analects

One who in the morning hears the right
way may in the evening die without regret.
- Confucian Analects

[annotation]
From his early days in China.