Chinese proverbsКитайские пословицы
8 passagesотрывков: 8
Each date opens its day beside the list, with these passages marked.Каждая дата открывает свой день рядом со списком, где отрывки этого автора отмечены.
1. Добрые люди друг другу пособляют, даже не подозревая того, а злые умышленно противодействуют один другому.
1. Good people help one another without even suspecting it, while the wicked deliberately work against one another.
Source not found yet (more).
Not found yet.
Not found. The saying ('good people help one another without suspecting it, the wicked oppose one another deliberately') is not in Tolstoy's 1903 «Мысли мудрых людей», in Conway's Sacred Anthology, or in the Lao-Tzu and Confucius texts consulted. The Jubilee commentary gives no source.
Searched: Jubilee vol. 40 (1903 anthology) for «пособляют»; Conway, The Sacred Anthology (1874) for 'unconsciously', 'good men', 'bad men', 'help one another'; Southgate, Tileston and Coit (saved) for 'Chinese proverb'; archive.org full text for 'help each other unconsciously', 'help one another without knowing', 'good men help one another unconsciously'.
Translation note. The Jubilee text breaks the italics at the commas; the English sets the line as one.
9. Очень богат тот, кому нечего терять.
9. Very rich is he who has nothing to lose.
Source not found yet (more).
Not found yet.
No source found. Not in Thoughts of Wise Men (1903). The Jubilee list of the Circle's sources names two Russian anthologies that could hold it, T. Tolstaya's «Восточная мудрость» (Posrednik, 1903) and M. L. Binshtok's «Книга мудрости» (1904); neither was available.
Searched: Conway's Sacred Anthology (Chinese entries; 'lose', 'rich'), Southgate's Many Thoughts of Many Minds, Thoughts of Wise Men (1903, Jubilee vol. 40), the Jubilee commentary (vol. 42), all saved source texts ('nothing to lose'), and archive.org full text ('has nothing to lose' with 'Chinese proverb'; German and French forms).
2. Лишь чужими глазами можно видеть свои недостатки.
2. Only through the eyes of others can one see one’s own faults.
Source not found yet (more).
Tolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньЛишь чужими глазами можно видеть свои недостатки.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
Not found yet.
Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), 16 November, prints the line signed «Китайская пословица», followed there by Schopenhauer's thought that each man sees his own faults in others as in a mirror; the vol. 40 commentary names no source for it. No Chinese or European source was found.
Searched: Conway's Sacred Anthology ('own faults', 'eyes'), Southgate's Many Thoughts of Many Minds, the Jubilee commentaries (vols. 40 and 42), all saved source texts ('eyes of others'), and archive.org full text (English, German, and French forms with 'Chinese').
8. Правдивость — единственная монета, которой везде ход.
8. Truthfulness is the only coin that passes everywhere.
Source not found yet (more).
Not found yet.
No source was found, and no Chinese saying with truthfulness as a coin current everywhere turned up in the four collections of Chinese proverbs searched. Not in Thoughts of Wise Men (1903). The Jubilee list of Tolstoy's anthologies names Everybody's Book of Proverbs and Quotations (London, 1890) and T. Tolstaya's «Восточная мудрость» (Посредник, 1903), neither found online; either may hold it.
Searched: Thoughts of Wise Men (1903) and its source list (Jubilee vol. 40); the Jubilee vols. 41-42 (attribution corrections, list of Tolstoy's sources); Conway's Sacred Anthology, Southgate (both), Coit, and Tileston, with every saved source, for truth, sincerity, or honesty beside a coin (English, French, German); W. Scarborough, A Collection of Chinese Proverbs (1875); A. H. Smith, Proverbs and Common Sayings from the Chinese (1902); J. F. Davis, Chinese Novels … with Proverbs and Moral Maxims (1822); Kwong Ki Chiu, A Dictionary of English Phrases … with a Selection of Chinese Proverbs (1881), all on archive.org; web searches in English and Russian.
6. Ты уже несчастен, если страшишься несчастья, а кто его заслуживает, тот его вечно страшится.
6. You are already unfortunate if you dread misfortune; and whoever deserves it dreads it forever.
Source not found yet (more).
Not found yet.
«Ты уже несчастен, если страшишься несчастья, а кто его заслуживает, тот его вечно страшится» (you are already unhappy if you fear unhappiness, and he who deserves it fears it always). No source was found in the Chinese proverb collections of Davis, Scarborough, and Smith, or in the anthologies Tolstoy used. The thought has Latin parallels (Seneca, Epistles 98.6, 'calamitosus est animus futuri anxius'), but no text with both halves was found, and nothing found ties it to China.
Searched: Conway's Sacred Anthology (1874); Thoughts of Wise Men (1903) and the Jubilee commentary and name index (vols. 40-42); Jubilee vols. 39, 43, and 45 (Path of Life); J. F. Davis, Chinese Novels … with Proverbs and Moral Maxims (1822) and Hien wun shoo, Chinese Moral Maxims (1823); W. Scarborough, A Collection of Chinese Proverbs (1875); A. H. Smith, Proverbs and Common Sayings from the Chinese (1902); Publilius Syrus (Latin and Lyman's English); Southgate, Coit, Tileston, and the saved issues of The World's Advance-Thought; web searches in English, French, and German for the sentence ('fears misfortune … already unhappy … he who deserves it always fears it').
5. Путь к славе пролегает через дворцы, к счастью — через базары, а к добродетели — через пустыни.
5. The road to glory runs through palaces, to happiness through markets, and to virtue through deserts.
From Proverbes chinois · close to the original (more).
What Tolstoy read · Paul Perny, Proverbes chinois, recueillis et mis en ordreOn va à la gloire par le palais, à la fortune par le marché …
… à la vertu par les déserts.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Proverbes chinois (1869), Part II, Proverbes chinois sans texte, p. 116, no. 36.
Perny's French, closely: «On va à la gloire par le palais, à la fortune par le marché, à la vertu par les déserts» (one goes to glory by the palace, to fortune by the market, to virtue by the deserts); Tolstoy's «к счастью — через базары» gives "fortune" as happiness and the market as bazaars, and puts palaces and bazaars in the plural. Paul Perny, a missionary of the Missions Étrangères, prints it among the proverbs given without Chinese text, so no Chinese original is shown. Found while tracing September 13's Chinese proverb, Perny's no. 43, on the next page; August's trace had searched Perny's collection on archive.org without finding it.
6. С мыслями своими обходись как с гостями, а с желаниями — как с детьми.
6. Treat your thoughts as guests, and your desires as children.
From Proverbes chinois · close to the original (more).
What Tolstoy read · Paul Perny, Proverbes chinois, recueillis et mis en ordreAccueillez vos pensées comme des hôtes et traitez vos désirs comme des enfants.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Proverbes chinois (1869), Part II, Proverbes chinois sans texte, p. 117, no. 43.
Perny's French, closely: «Accueillez vos pensées comme des hôtes et traitez vos désirs comme des enfants» (receive your thoughts as guests and treat your desires as children); Tolstoy's one verb, «обходись» (deal with), covers Perny's two. Paul Perny, a missionary of the Missions Étrangères, prints it in the second part of his collection, the proverbs given without Chinese text, so no Chinese original was found. August's unplaced «Китайская пословица» (8-27.5, the roads to glory, fortune, and virtue) is on the page before, no. 36: «On va à la gloire par le palais, à la fortune par le marché, à la vertu par les déserts».
2. Скромность истинно добрых людей выражается в забвении: они так поглощены тем, что сейчас делают, что упускают из виду то, что уже сделали.
2. The modesty of truly good people shows itself in forgetting: they are so absorbed in what they are doing now that they lose sight of what they have already done.
Source not found yet (more).
Not found yet.
No source found. T. Tolstaya, «Восточная мудрость» (Посредник, 1903), in the Jubilee source list, is the likely Russian intermediary for the unsigned Eastern sayings; no online copy was found.
Searched: Pauthier, Les quatre livres (Analects, Great Learning, Mean, Mencius) for modestie/oubli; Legge Analects; Southgate, Coit, Tileston.