chinese proverb

faxe75
 May 04, 2007, 03:19 PM posted in General Discussion

Hi, I am looking for the chinese translation (characters and pinin) for the following chinese proverb, would be great if somebody could help me out!

"If you want to know your past - look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future - look into your present actions."

greetings and thank you

Profile picture
lostinasia
 May 04, 2007, 04:45 PM

I don't know about this one, but don't get your hopes up - I think a lot of these "Chinese proverbs" are of pretty doubtful origin and rhetorically equivalent to "My friend said...". Have a look at links for "May you live in interesting times" in Wikipedia, and one of these links for the crisis/ danger/ opportunity line: http://www.pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004343.html (Sometimes translations are entertaining too - who knows, this could come from some Chinese expression like "Check the colour of the silk to know the silkworm, look to the direction of the bee to find the honey.")