坐井觀天
See also: 坐井观天
Chinese
| to sit; to take a seat; to take (a bus, aeroplane, etc.) | warn; well | to look at; to watch; to observe to look at; to watch; to observe; to behold; Taoist monastery |
day; sky; heaven | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| trad. (坐井觀天) | 坐 | 井 | 觀 | 天 | |
| simp. (坐井观天) | 坐 | 井 | 观 | 天 | |
| Literally: “To sit in a well and look at the sky”. | |||||
Etymology
Related to 井底之蛙 (jǐngdǐzhīwā). Directly from
- 老子之小仁義，非毀之也，其見者小也。坐井而觀天，曰「天小」者，非天小也。 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
- From: c. early 9th century, Han Yu (韓愈),《原道》, translated into English as True Faith of a Confucianist by Herbert Allen Giles, 1922.
- Lǎozǐ zhī xiǎo rényì, fēi huǐ zhī yě, qí jiàn zhě xiǎo yě. Zuò jǐng ér guān tiān, yuē “tiān xiǎo” zhě, fēi tiān xiǎo yě. [Pinyin]
- Lao Tzŭ merely narrowed the scope of charity and duty; he did not attempt to do without them altogether. His view of them was the narrow view of a man sitting at the bottom of a well and inferring the size of the heavens from the small portion visible to himself.
老子之小仁义，非毁之也，其见者小也。坐井而观天，曰「天小」者，非天小也。 [Classical Chinese, simp.]
Pronunciation
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