judge people by outward appearance

judge people by outward appearance

Judging people by their appearance is a Chinese idiom. Pinyin is y à m à OQ à R é n, which means to judge a person's quality and ability according to his appearance. It comes from biography of Zhongni's disciples in historical records.

The origin of Idioms

Sima Qian's biography of Zhongni's disciples in records of the historian in the Western Han Dynasty: "I judge people by my words, I will be punished if I lose, I will judge people by my appearance, and I will lose my son."

Idiom usage

It has a derogatory meaning. It's really bad that he didn't say it for a long time, but it's only our fault that he didn't go through a screening in advance. Guo Moruo's Tu Jia Bu

Idiom story

In the spring and Autumn period, Zi Yu, a student of Confucius, was ugly. Confucius was very indifferent to him. He had to leave Confucius to study for himself and became a famous scholar. Zai Yu, a student, was very good-looking and eloquent, but later he was criticized by Confucius for his inconsistent words and deeds. There is also a saying that Zaiyu was killed by Chen Heng because he took part in Tian Chang's rebellion, but Sima Zhen in Tang Dynasty doubted that he regarded Kaizhi as Zaiyu. No matter what the reason is, Confucius once said with emotion: "you can't judge people by their appearance, and you can't judge others by their words."