Chinese idioms from the Dao De Jing
柔弱胜刚强 (róu ruò shèng gāng qiáng)
Word for word from chapter 36
柔弱胜刚强 (róu ruò shèng gāng qiáng), “the soft and weak overcome the hard and strong”, comes from chapter 36 of the Dao De Jing and means that yielding outlasts force.
Character by character
| 柔 | róu | soft, supple |
|---|---|---|
| 弱 | ruò | weak, weakness |
| 胜 | shèng | to overcome; victory |
| 刚 | gāng | hard, rigid |
| 强 | qiáng | strong |
| 柔弱胜刚强 | What is soft and yielding wins in the end over what is hard and rigid. | |
Where it comes from
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柔弱胜刚强。
The soft and weak overcome the hard and strong.
How the meaning moved
The line stands on its own in chapter 36: “The soft and weak overcome the hard and strong.” It comes after four lines on how things turn into their opposite (“what is to be weakened must first be strengthened”), which the chapter calls “subtle insight”.
No idea is more central to the book. Chapter 40 says “weakness is the use of the Way”; chapter 43 “The softest thing in the world runs through the hardest thing in the world”; chapter 52 “keeping to the soft is called strength”. Chapter 76 draws it from life and death: “People are soft and weak when alive, hard and stiff when dead.” And chapter 78 puts it in the image of water: “Nothing in the world is softer or weaker than water”, yet “The weak overcomes the strong, the soft overcomes the hard”.
Today 柔弱胜刚强 is quoted for patience winning over force, and for the yielding side that outlasts the rigid one. The idiom 以柔克刚, “to overcome the hard with the soft”, says the same in four characters.
Using it today
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水滴能把石头滴穿，这就是柔弱胜刚强。
shuǐ dī néng bǎ shí tou dī chuān, zhè jiù shì róu ruò shèng gāng qiáng.
Dripping water can wear a hole in stone: that is the soft and weak overcoming the hard and strong.
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她说话总是轻声细语，却常常能说服脾气最硬的人，真是柔弱胜刚强。
tā shuō huà zǒng shì qīng shēng xì yǔ, què cháng cháng néng shuō fú pí qi zuì yìng de rén, zhēn shì róu ruò shèng gāng qiáng.
She always speaks softly, yet she can often win over the most stubborn people: the soft truly overcomes the hard.