前事不忘,後事之師

简 前事不忘,后事之师 · 繁 前事不忘,後事之師
Mandarin · pinyin qián shì bù wàng , hòu shì zhī shī

Meanings

  1. don't forget past events, they can guide you in future (idiom); benefit from past experience
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Characters in this entry

前
qián · in front, forward; preceding
事
shì · affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident
不
bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
忘
wàng · forget; neglect; miss, omit
後
hòu · behind, rear, after; descendents
之
zhī · marks preceding phrase as modifier of following phrase; it, him her, them; go to
師
shī · teacher, master, specialist; multitude, troops; hexagram ䷆
后
hòu · queen, empress, sovereign; (simp. for 後) behind, rear, after
师
shī · teacher, master, specialist
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

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前事不忘,後事之師 · qian2 shi4 bu4 wang4 , hou4 shi4 zhi1 shi1
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 14,409
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record前事不忘,後事之師 前事不忘,后事之师 [qian2 shi4 bu4 wang4 , hou4 shi4 zhi1 shi1] /don't forget past events, they can guide you in future (idiom); benefit from past experience/