諺語 · a single proverb
人無千日好，花無百日紅
Simplified: 人无千日好，花无百日红
What does 人無千日好，花無百日紅 (rén wú qiān rì hǎo huā wú bǎi rì hóng) mean?
人無千日好，花無百日紅 (rén wú qiān rì hǎo huā wú bǎi rì hóng) is a folk proverb (yànyǔ 諺語). Word for word it reads "no one has a thousand good days; no flower stays red for a hundred." In use it means: Neither human fortune nor natural beauty lasts indefinitely; accepting impermanence is the beginning of equanimity. You reach for it when you want that idea in one breath, and the Wood note it carries is why we hand it to those born in the Year of the Goat.
Literally: "no one has a thousand good days; no flower stays red for a hundred."
The reading
The streak ends. It always does. And when it ends, the question is not what went wrong but whether you used the good days to prepare for the ordinary ones. The person who expects the flower to last forever has a harder autumn than the person who pressed a petal in a book.
What kind of proverb it is
Source Zengguang Xianwen 增廣賢文; common folk proverb
Sits beside
Keep reading
Return to the Proverb Pond to draw another of the eighty-seven, or hear one read aloud. Read the rest of its chapter in Nature, Seasons & Health, or follow the years these lines belong to: Year of the Goat, Year of the Rat, and Year of the Ox.
Questions
Is 人無千日好，花無百日紅 a real Chinese proverb?
Yes. 人無千日好，花無百日紅 (rén wú qiān rì hǎo huā wú bǎi rì hóng) is a folk proverb (yànyǔ 諺語), and it comes from Zengguang Xianwen 增廣賢文; common folk proverb. It is living Chinese heritage, given here with per-character pinyin and its source so you can trust the line, not a phrase invented in English.
How do you pronounce 人無千日好，花無百日紅?
In Mandarin it is rén wú qiān rì hǎo huā wú bǎi rì hóng. Read the pinyin above each character to follow the tones, or press the speaker beside the calligraphy to hear your browser read 人無千日好，花無百日紅 aloud in Mandarin.