Korean Self-Love Quotes/Proverbs & Life Lessons
๋จ์ ๋ก์ด ๋ ์ปค๋ณด์ธ๋ค.
Literal Translation: The other personโs rice cake is bigger than yours
Meaning: donโt compare yourself or your life with someone elseโs
Life Lesson:
Especially on social media, you only see the parts that other people choose to show - the highlights, but not the behind the scenes. Youโre life is not better or worse than another persons. The grass always looks greener on the other side, but you never know what that person is going through behind the scenes. Donโt try to trade your life in for another personโs just because of how things appear on the outside.
Vocab from proverb:
๋จ - another person, stranger
์ - possessive particle (โs)
๋ก - rice cake
๋ - more
ํฌ๋ค - big
์/์ด ๋ณด์ด๋ค - to look, appear, seem
์์ง๋ฌ์ง ๋ฌผ์ด๋ค
Literal Translation:ย It is spilled water.
Meaning: There is no use in crying over spilled milk.
Life Lesson:
A lot of things in life arenโt worth crying over, especially if itโs something that happened in the past. The past is the past and we have to learn to let go of the past. If you dwell on your failures, your shortcomings, your embarrassing moments, or any other terrible things you may have experienced in the past - It will keep you from living in the present. You Can Not Change The Past - no matter how much you think about it, so thereโs no use โcryingโ over it. Donโt let the past determine who you are today. Whenever you catch yourself worrying too much about a past occurrence, tell yourself, โIt already happened and I canโt control that, but I can control what I do todayโ.
Vocab from proverb:
์์ง๋ฌ์ง๋ค - to spill
๋ฌผ - water
๋ฅ์ด ๋ฌด์์์ ํผํ๋? ๋๋ฌ์์ ํผํ์ง.
Literal Translation: you donโt avoid poop, because itโs scary. You avoid poop because itโs dirty.
Meaning: you should avoid certain things and people in your life, not because you are scared, but because it will disrupt your peace and happiness.
Life Lesson:
If at all possible try to remove or minimize contact with toxic people in your life - even if that just means distancing yourself from them mentally. Also avoid overtly negative and toxic situations whenever you can, because it can improve your mental health and overall happiness. Holding on to grudges, anger, sadness, etc. can also be harmful to your mental health - It may be hard to hear but some things you have to let go of. For yourself and your peace of mind. Forgive yourself of any past mistakes or failures and allow yourself to move forward.
Vocab from proverb:
๋ฅ - poop
๋ฌด์ญ๋ค - be scared of
์/์ด/ํด์ - because
ํผํ๋ค - to avoid
๋? - informal question ending
๋๋ฝ๋ค - to be dirty
์ง - shortened form of ์ง์ / ์ฃ
(when speaker confirms something they thought the listener already knew)
๋ง์ ๋๊ฐ์ ๋๊ณ ๊ฐ ์๋ ์์ด๋ ์ต์ง๋ก ๋ฌผ์ ๋จน์ผ ์๋ ์๋ค
Literal Translation: You can lead a horse and go to a stream, but you canโt make it drink water through its own will
Meaning: You can lead a horse to water, but you canโt make him drink
Life Lesson:
You canโt force someone to do something that they donโt want to do. You canโt change someone who isnโt willing to change. You canโt save someone who doesnโt want to be saved. You canโt help someone who doesnโt want to be helped. There are many ways to say it, but the overall message is the same.
On the opposite side of the coin, Itโs a great idea to be open and willing to positive changes and to growth. In life you want to always be growing and not static - unless your perfect (which no one is). Sometimes we may feel static and like we are going no where no matter how hard we try to move. In those cases, either you need to make a change and do something a bit different or you are moving forward but itโs just so slowly that you donโt notice it - taking a step back and looking at your situation objectively can sometimes help.
Vocab from proverb:
๋ง - horse
๋๊ฐ - stream (of water)
๋๋ค - to lead
๊ณ - and
๊ฐ๋ค - to go
ใน ์ ์๋ค - can do
์/์ด๋ - even if
์ต์ง - force
(์ผ)๋ก - by (explain methods)
์ต์ง๋ก - by force
๋ฌผ - water
๋จน์ด๋ค - to feed, make eat/drink
ใน ์(๋) ์๋ค - canโt
(the ๋ adds emphasis)
That's all for this post! Which proverb is your favorite?


















