self-destruction

  • 以卵击石 (yǐ luǎn jī shí)

    Basic Information Chinese Idiom: 以卵击石Pinyin: yǐ luǎn jī shíLiteral Meaning: To strike a rock with an egg.Figurative Meaning: It describes overestimating one’s own strength and recklessly challenging a far‑more powerful opponent, which will almost certainly lead to self‑destruction or total defeat. Equivalent to “to kick against the pricks” or “throw an egg against a…

  • Mencius – Chapter 7.8 Self-inflicted ruin and the moral roots

    Mencius said: “Can one reason with those unbenevolent men?They feel secure in danger, profit from disasters, and even take pleasure in the very things that will destroy them.If such people could still be reasoned with, how could there ever be ruined states or broken families?”

  • Why did Liu Yu fall to Gongsun Zan? [Three Kingdoms]

    In the chaotic final years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, few conflicts better illustrate the clash between moral authority and military power than the fatal struggle between Liu Yu and Gongsun Zan.

  • Caigentan 100. Taming the wildfires of wealth and power

    When people grow up in the households of wealthy families, their love of luxury and covetousness are like a raging fire, and their reliance on their power is like a searing flame.

  • Reincarnated Three Times

    Liu, a juren, remembered things from his former lives (Note: Juren is the title conferred on those successful candidates at the provincial level in the imperial examination) and confided in my deceased cousin, Pu Wenfen, as they both became juren in the same year.

  • Clever-yet-foolish apes

    Baboons are the wisest beasts who know the past, but lack foresight for the future.

  • The Drowning Miser

    In Yongzhou there were many good swimmers. One day, the river swelled suddenly. Braving the danger, about half a dozen people started across in a small boat.

  • The suspicion of ghosts: The story of Juan Shuliang

    There was once a man of southern Xia Shou by the name of Juan Shuliang who was both slow-witted and cowardly.