取其精華,去其糟粕

简 取其精华,去其糟粕 · 繁 取其精華,去其糟粕
Mandarin · pinyin qǔ qí jīng huá , qù qí zāo pò

Meanings

  1. take the cream, discard the dross (political and educational slogan)
  2. keep what is good, discard the rest
  3. You need to be selective when studying.
  4. In modernizing the country, don't accept uncritically all foreign ideas.
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Characters in this entry

取
qǔ · take, receive, obtain; select
其
qí · his, her, its, their; that
精
jīng · essence; semen; spirit
華
Look up this written character
去
qù · go away, leave, depart
糟
zāo · sediment, dregs; pickle
粕
pò · lees, dregs, sediments left after distilling liquor
华
huá · flowery; illustrious; Chinese
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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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.

取其精華,去其糟粕 · find source passages ↗ · 取其精华,去其糟粕 · find source passages ↗

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取其精華,去其糟粕 · qu3 qi2 jing1 hua2 , qu4 qi2 zao1 po4
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 18,551
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record取其精華,去其糟粕 取其精华,去其糟粕 [qu3 qi2 jing1 hua2 , qu4 qi2 zao1 po4] /take the cream, discard the dross (political and educational slogan)/keep what is good, discard the rest/You need to be selective when studying./In modernizing the country, don't accept uncritically all foreign ideas./