Chinese practice
好高騖遠；一步登天
aim too high; ascend to Heaven in a single bound
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
照片：維基共享資源
(hao4 gao1 wu4 yuan3; yi2 bu4 deng1 tian1)
詩人呂留良（西元一六二九～一六八三年）的一生，由明末跨入清初的幾十年，他也投身於反清復明活動。雖然呂留良很有才學，也被滿清徵召為朝廷效力，但他拒絕了做官的名利誘惑而隱居起來。呂留良在其著名的〈述懷〉一詩中，表達他為何仍忠於明朝，詩中以「清風」暗指滿清，「明月」隱喻明朝：
清風雖細難吹我，
明月何嘗不照人？
寒冰不能斷流水，
枯木也會再逢春！
呂留良在〈與錢孝直書〉中告訴錢孝直：「其根大約在好高騖遠，事事求出人頭地」，這便是成語「好高騖遠」的出處。如同英文中意義相似的「don’t walk before you can run」（不會走就想跑），「好高騖遠」並不是在形容才華驚人，而是在告誡人，不要在還沒掌握基礎知識的時候，就一味地嚮往高遠的目標。「好高騖遠」中的「好」，發音作第四聲（音同「號」），因此處是用做動詞（意為「喜歡」或「想要」），而非常見的形容詞用法（發音同「郝」）。
雖然寫出「好高騖遠」這字句的是呂留良，但他作此語之靈感來自《宋史》。《宋史．卷四二七．道學列傳一．程顥》中，記載了宋代哲學家程顥（西元一○三二～一○八五年）對做學問的看法，是「病學者厭卑近而騖高遠，卒無成焉」（詬病學者嫌棄低微淺顯的知識，而致力於追求高遠的目標，終究落得沒有成就）。
另一常見的成語「一步登天」，也表達了類似的概念。
政治思想家及改革家康有為（西元一八五八～一九二七年）出生於清朝，卒年在中華民國成立之後。康有為力倡改革，要在滿清帝國體制中實施君主立憲。康有為在一八九八年的改革被稱為「百日維新」，最後因為野心太大、好高騖遠而失敗了。或許有人認為，康有為的改革如果是按部就班進行、一步一步來，情況或許就不會那麼糟。然而，也有人認為這次改革的失敗，加快了中國境內革命運動的進程，很快就讓孫文成功推翻滿清政府，建立中華民國。
激進派的革命家陳天華（西元一八七五～一九○五年）是孫文的革命盟友之一，曾協助成立同盟會，誓言驅逐韃虜、建立共和民國。陳天華在所著之《獅子吼》一書中，描述康有為是個「好功名的人，想自己一人一步登天，做個維新的元勛」（此處的「好」，也是作動詞用）。這句話也就是成語「一步登天」的由來。
(台北時報林俐凱譯)
你如果想創業，別急著開店，先擺個地攤試試看，如果連東西都賣不出去，你就是好高騖遠。
(If you want to start a business, don’t rush into opening up a store. Start off with a street stand and see how that goes: if things don’t sell well, you would have overstretched yourself.)
英文練習
don’t run before you can walk
The life of the Chinese poet Lu Liuliang (1629 – 1683) straddled the end of the Ming (明) Dynasty and the opening decades of the Manchu Qing (清) Dynasty. Lu, a Ming loyalist, had been involved in the anti-Manchu movement. Despite his obvious scholarly talents, and being called upon to serve the Qing, he declined the lure and status of government service, and became a hermit instead. Lu wrote a famous poem, shuhuai (Reflections), in which he expressed the reasons for his continued loyalty to the Ming. Here, the light breeze 清風 alludes to the Qing; the bright moon 明月 to the Ming.
清風雖細難吹我，[The light breeze, however delicate, means nothing to me]
明月何嘗不照人？[How is it that the bright moon still shines upon us?]
寒冰不能斷流水，[The winter ice cannot stem the river’s flow]
枯木也會再逢春。[The dead tree will yet know another spring]
Lu also gave us the Chinese idiom 好高騖遠 in a letter to a man named Qian Xiaozhi, in the line 其根大約在好高騖遠,事事求出人頭地 (It is part of his essential character that he seeks to walk before he can run, and to excel in all things). As with the English equivalent, “don’t run before you can walk,” 好高騖遠 is less a comment on one’s prodigious talent and more a caution or admonition against trying to progress too quickly, before you have a command of the basics. Here, the 好 is pronounced using the fourth tone in Mandarin, as it is being used as a verb (“to like” or “to want to”), instead of the more common use as an adjective (“good”).
Although Lu first wrote the idiom in the format used today, his inspiration for it came from the song shi (History of the Song Dynasty). In the entry on the Song Dynasty philosopher Cheng Hao (1032 – 1085) in the daoxue liezhuan (Biographies of the Neo-Confucians) chapter, we read how Cheng was 病學者厭卑近而騖高遠，卒無成焉 (concerned that students would disregard what was lowly and nearby and aspire instead to seeking the lofty and out of reach, and end up achieving little as a result).
A similar idea is expressed in another common idiom, 一步登天, meaning to ”ascend to Heaven in a single bound.”
The political thinker and reformer Kang You-wei (1858 – 1927), born in the Qing and dying after the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC), had advocated strongly for reform and the creation in imperial China of a constitutional monarchy. Kang’s short-lived reforms, known in retrospect as the “Hundred Days’ Reform” of 1898, failed because they were far too ambitious, and because he had perhaps aimed too high. That said, the failure is regarded by some as having emboldened the revolutionary movement within China that would soon lead to the fall of the Qing at the hands of ROC founding father Sun Yat-sen.
Among Sun’s brothers-in-arms was the radical revolutionary Chen Tianhua (1875 – 1905), who had helped Sun form the Tongmenghui (“united league”): one of the league’s professed goals was to expel the Manchu and establish a republic. In his book the shizi hou (The Lion’s Roar), Chen wrote of Kang that he was a 好功名的人，想自己一人一步登天，做個維新的元勛 (person who aspired to fame and glory, who wanted to ascend to Heaven in a single bound and be a leading light of the reform movement). Here, again, the 好 is used as a verb. It is the origin of 一步登天.
(Paul Cooper, Taipei Times)
If you want to learn to play the guitar, I suggest you get a good command of the basic chords first; don’t try to learn lots of unusual jazz chords. Learn to walk before you run.
(如果你想學吉他，我建議你先好好掌握基本和弦，不要學一大堆複雜的爵士和弦。你要按部就班，不要好高騖遠。)
His problem was that he always wanted to run before he could even crawl on all fours.
(他老是好高騖遠，想一步登天。這就是他的毛病。)
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