人不為己,天誅地滅

简 人不为己,天诛地灭 · 繁 人不為己,天誅地滅
Mandarin · pinyin rén bù wèi jǐ , tiān zhū dì miè

Meanings

  1. Look out for yourself, or heaven and earth will combine to destroy you.
  2. Every man for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost.
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

人
rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
為
Look up this written character
己
jǐ · self, oneself; personal, private; 6th heavenly stem
天
tiān · sky, heaven; god, celestial
誅
Look up this written character
地
de · dì · earth; soil, ground; region
滅
Look up this written character
为
wèi · do, handle, govern, act; be
诛
zhū · execute, kill, put to death; punish
灭
miè · extinguish; wipe out, exterminate
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Connected dictionary

8character links
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

人不為己,天誅地滅 · find source passages ↗ · 人不为己,天诛地灭 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

人不為己,天誅地滅 · ren2 bu4 wei4 ji3 , tian1 zhu1 di4 mie4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 5,666
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record人不為己,天誅地滅 人不为己,天诛地灭 [ren2 bu4 wei4 ji3 , tian1 zhu1 di4 mie4] /Look out for yourself, or heaven and earth will combine to destroy you./Every man for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost./