📖 Meaning
To correct past mistakes and cultivate virtuous conduct for the days ahead. It emphasizes genuine self-reform through both abandoning old wrongs and actively pursuing future good deeds.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase originates from the 'Biographies of Fanghai Arts' in the Book of Later Han (后汉书), in the biography of the scholar-official Gongsha Mu. Gongsha Mu, known for his integrity and divination skills, advised people to amend their past errors and strive for future blessings through virtuous behavior. A later usage appears in Pei Songzhi's annotations to the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, where the historian Xi Zaochi of the Jin dynasty quoted the phrase in a memorial urging a general to reform his conduct. The idiom thus carries a centuries-old tradition of moral self-correction.
💡 Example Usage
是后又望将军改往修来，克己复礼，追还孔怀如初之爱。
Afterwards it was again hoped that the General would reform his past ways and cultivate future virtue, restrain himself and restore the rites, and recover the brotherly love they once shared.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 改往修来
- Pinyin: gǎi wǎng xiū lái
- Literal Translation: change, past, cultivate, future
- Category: Morality
- Characters: 4