Chinese Idioms about Caution & Foresight

Think three times before acting.

Prevent trouble before it happens — head problems off in advance.

Bind and tie before it rains — prepare ahead of time.

In peace, think of danger — stay alert even when things are going well.

To give up halfway; to leave something unfinished.

To be half-believing, half-doubting; dubious.

A drop in the bucket; an utterly inadequate remedy.

Unpredictable; capricious; fickle.

Tip of the iceberg.

To leave without saying goodbye; to take French leave.

To shudder despite not being cold; to be frightened or terrified.

To leave something unfinished; to fizzle out; to drop the matter.

Involuntarily; can't help but; against one's will.

To use any means to achieve one's goal; unscrupulous.

To not know what to do; to be at a loss; to be at one's wits' end.

To see enemies everywhere; extreme paranoia.

When the city gate catches fire, the fish in the moat suffer; one suffers as a result of others' troubles.

To eat, drink, and be merry; to indulge in pleasure.

To have a worried and unhappy look; to wear a distressed expression.

A shocking sight; a scene that shocks the eye and alarms the heart.

To be dejected; to be in low spirits; crestfallen.

Careless; negligent.

To be caught off guard; to be taken by surprise.

To alert the enemy by a rash act; to beat the grass and startle the snake.

To make a fuss over nothing; to be alarmed at the slightest provocation.

Sanctimonious; having an air of virtue but lacking true morality.

The gain does not make up for the loss; more trouble than it's worth.

Give him an inch and he'll take a mile; never satisfied.

To muddle along; to drift along; taking each day as it comes.

Triumphantly; in high feather; bursting with pride.

To distort the facts; to turn black into white; to invert right and wrong.

Forgetful; scatterbrained; always forgetting things.

To look around; to glance this way and that.

To quote out of context; to take something out of context.

To do something carelessly or perfunctorily; to skimp on the job.

To watch the fire from the other side of the river; to sit by and watch other people fight.

To fall short of success for lack of a final effort; to fail within an inch of success.

Shocking; dreadful; scandalous.

Fears of trouble in the rear; worries about what might happen in the future.

To let one's imagination run wild; to have fanciful ideas; to indulge in wishful thinking.

Sweet words and clever phrases; honeyed words; deceptive language.

Eager for quick success and instant benefits; shortsighted.

Anxious for quick results; eager to achieve success immediately.

To forget morality at the sight of profit; to be blinded by greed.

To calculate minutely; to be careful in planning and budgeting.

To be alarmed and at a loss; panic-stricken.

To have only oneself to blame; to stew in one's own juice.

To remain high; to stay at a high level (price, temperature, etc.).

Unable to make up one's mind; hesitant.

Demands immediate action; admit of no delay; extremely urgent.

An opportunity to exploit; a chance to take advantage of.

Castle in the air; an impractical or unrealistic scheme.

To boast and brag; to talk bombastically.

To fill a position just to make up the numbers; to pass oneself off as competent when one is not.

To be so happy that one forgets one's home or origins; to be content in exile.

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak; not having the ability to do what one wants to do.

In a mess; in utter disorder; everything is mixed up.

Endless; without end; never-ending.

A fly in the ointment; a blemish in perfection; a minor flaw.

Changed beyond recognition; completely transformed.

To look after one's own safety by avoiding involvement in contentious issues; to play it safe.

To consider everyone else beneath one; arrogant.

To act in a way that defeats one's purpose; to go south by driving the chariot north; to run in the opposite direction.

To fly into a rage out of humiliation; to be shamefully angry.

To try to be clever but end up making a mess of things; oversmarting oneself.

To practice fraud; to fabricate; to cheat.

Imminent; impending; a matter of great urgency.

To worry about unfounded or imaginary fears; to be overly concerned.

A hair's breadth; in imminent peril; a critical moment.

Following the same pattern; stereotyped; cut from the same cloth.

To lose everything; to be reduced to poverty; to be cleaned out.

As if nothing had happened; to act unconcerned.

Half-hearted; indecisive; fickle.

Against one's will; involuntarily; cannot help oneself.

To be overbearing; to be arrogant and domineering.

To be at one's wit's end; to be helpless.

To be surrounded by enemies; to be isolated and without help.

To think over and over; to consider carefully.

Specious; appearing right but actually wrong.

unscrupulous and unrestrained; to act with absolutely no constraint

To drift with the tide; to go with the flow; to follow the crowd without one's own opinion.

Harm others to benefit oneself; benefit oneself at the expense of others.

To overrate one's strength and attempt the impossible; to kick against the pricks.

To be in suspense; to have one's heart in one's mouth; to be very scared or apprehensive.

To describe something extravagantly or hyperbolically; to exaggerate wildly.

To arise suddenly; to come unexpectedly; out of the blue.

Perfectly safe; foolproof; absolutely sure.

To feel powerless in the face of an overwhelming task; to sigh in despair at one's own inadequacy.

To exaggerate to mislead or scare people; to raise a false alarm; sensationalize.

unmoved; indifferent; untouched

listless; in low spirits; crestfallen

to make trouble without reason; to be deliberately provocative

powerless; helpless; unable to do anything about it

To patch things up; to smooth things over; to pour oil on troubled waters.

Careful and cautious; with great care.

Burning with impatience; extremely anxious.

To stand by idly; to look on without lifting a finger.

To rein in the horse at the edge of a precipice; to come to a sudden realization before it's too late.

To add frost to snow; one disaster after another; to make things worse in a bad situation.

To practice graft; to bend the law for personal gain.

To spoil things by excessive enthusiasm; to try to help seedlings grow by pulling them up.

Tottering; on the verge of collapse.

To profess love for something one actually fears or dislikes; to be a fair-weather fan.

Unchanging; static; set in stone.

At wit's end; unable to find a solution.

To generalize; to lump everything together.

Completely; thoroughly; leaving nothing behind.

Every action; each move.

To accomplish nothing; to be a failure.

Meticulous; scrupulous; not the least bit negligent.

A complete mess; in an awful state.

Unexpected; unforeseen.

Every word and deed; all words and actions.

To quench one's thirst with poison; to adopt a stopgap measure that brings about disastrous results.

To have nothing to fear because one has strong backing; fearless because of reliance on someone or something.

To hesitate and be unable to make up one's mind; to be indecisive.

The more one tries to conceal, the more obvious it becomes.

To become more and more intense; to escalate.

Dizzy and disoriented; confused.

Disorganized; chaotic; in a mess.

Unavoidable; inevitable.

To deliberately misrepresent something; to call a spade a spade.

To consider oneself always in the right; be opinionated.

To have no way out; to be in a hopeless situation.

Not to step out of doors; to remain at home.

The main culprit; the chief perpetrator.

To look around; to glance right and left.