Chinese Wisdom (English-Chinese Edition): Nearly 2,000 Maxims from Chinese Classics, from Pre-Qin to Late Qing

For over two thousand years, the deepest Chinese wisdom has been passed down in short, powerful sentences. “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.” “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” “Read ten thousand books, and your pen will be guided as if by the gods.” These lines come from the Analects, the Tao Te Ching, the Records of the Grand Historian, and dozens of other classics — and they still shape how Chinese people think, speak, and live today.

This book brings together nearly 2,000 of these classic sayings and does four things for each one: it tells you where it comes from, shows you how to pronounce it with pinyin, explains what it actually means in plain Chinese, and gives you an English translation — not a loose paraphrase, but a careful, literal rendering that preserves the flavor of the original.

The quotes are organized into four clear themes: Learning, Friendship, Self-Cultivation, and Wisdom. Want to find sayings about studying? About how the ancients viewed friendship, character, or the meaning of life? Just go to the right section. Everything is arranged alphabetically by pinyin, so it's easy to browse and easy to find what you need.

The compiler, Zhang Zheng, is a professor at Beijing Normal University, director of its Institute for Comparative Culture and Translation Studies, and holds a PhD in English Language and Literature from Peking University. He has published over 70 academic papers-39. The English text was reviewed by Professor John G. Blair of Brown University-39. The book received the 2019 “China Publishing Good Book” award-39.

Whether you're learning Chinese and want a bilingual reader you can actually understand, or you want to talk about Chinese culture with English-speaking friends but don't know where to start — this book gives you something you can use on every page. Read it, remember it, use it.