Chinese idioms from the Dao De Jing
大器晚成 (dà qì wǎn chéng)
Word for word from chapter 41
大器晚成 (dà qì wǎn chéng), “the great vessel is finished late”, comes from chapter 41 of the Dao De Jing and today means that great talent matures slowly.
Character by character
| 大 | dà | great, big |
|---|---|---|
| 器 | qì | vessel, tool, instrument |
| 晚 | wǎn | late |
| 成 | chéng | to complete, accomplish |
| 大器晚成 | A person of great ability often succeeds late in life. | |
Where it comes from
-
大方无隅，大器晚成，
the great square has no corners, the great vessel is finished late,
How the meaning moved
The phrase is one of the sayings in chapter 41 about the Way and its virtue looking like their opposite. The chapter begins with three kinds of scholar hearing of the Way: the lesser one laughs at it, and “If he did not laugh, it would not be the Way.” Then come the established sayings, among them “the great square has no corners, the great vessel is finished late” and “the great sound is barely heard, the great image has no shape”.
In the chapter the great vessel is an image of the Way, not a person. Later the phrase was said of people whose talent takes long to show, and that is how it is used today: to encourage someone who has not yet succeeded, or to praise someone who succeeded late.
The excavated manuscripts write the third character differently: 大器曼成 on the Guodian bamboo slips, 大器免成 in the Mawangdui silk manuscript B, 大器勉成 on the Peking University Han slips. The editors of the Guodian slips read 曼 as 晚, “late”; other scholars read it, or 免, as “without”, which would make the great vessel “never completed”, like the square that has no corners and the image that has no shape. This site follows the received text, 晚.
| 大器曼成 | Guodian bamboo slips (about 300 BCE) |
|---|---|
| 大器免成 | Mawangdui silk manuscript B (tomb sealed in 168 BCE) |
| 大器勉成 | Peking University Han bamboo slips |
Using it today
-
他四十多岁才写出第一部长篇小说，真可谓大器晚成。
tā sì shí duō suì cái xiě chū dì yī bù cháng piān xiǎo shuō, zhēn kě wèi dà qì wǎn chéng.
He wrote his first novel only in his forties: truly a great talent that matured late.
-
别着急，有些人大器晚成，你只是还没到时候。
bié zháo jí, yǒu xiē rén dà qì wǎn chéng, nǐ zhǐ shì hái méi dào shí hou.
Don't worry: some people come into their own late, and your time just hasn't come yet.