來者不善,善者不來

简 来者不善,善者不来 · 繁 來者不善,善者不來
Mandarin · pinyin lái zhě bù shàn , shàn zhě bù lái

Meanings

  1. He who comes is surely ill-intentioned, no-one well-meaning will come (idiom).
  2. Be careful not to trust foreigners.
  3. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!
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Characters in this entry

來
lái · come, coming; return, returning
者
zhě · that which; he who; those who
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
善
shàn · good, virtuous, charitable, kind
来
lái · come, coming; return, returning
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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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.

來者不善,善者不來 · find source passages ↗ · 来者不善,善者不来 · find source passages ↗

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來者不善,善者不來 · lai2 zhe3 bu4 shan4 , shan4 zhe3 bu4 lai2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 7,716
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record來者不善,善者不來 来者不善,善者不来 [lai2 zhe3 bu4 shan4 , shan4 zhe3 bu4 lai2] /He who comes is surely ill-intentioned, no-one well-meaning will come (idiom)./Be careful not to trust foreigners./Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!/