📖 Meaning
A metaphor for boasting about one's own talents in order to seek employment, appointment, or trust. It describes someone who actively promotes their abilities rather than waiting to be discovered. The phrase carries a slightly critical tone toward self-advertisement.
📜 Origin Story
The idiom traces back to a dialogue in the Analects (论语·子罕), where Zigong asked Confucius whether a beautiful jade should be stored away in a box or sold to a good buyer. Confucius replied, 'Sell it! I am just waiting for the right price.' The Wei-Jin scholar He Yan, in his collected commentary, quoted Han scholar Bao Xian interpreting 'sell it' as a rhetorical refusal to hawk oneself. Over time, the phrase 衒玉自售 emerged to describe the act of advertising one's own worth.
💡 Example Usage
他才华横溢却不屑于衒玉自售，宁愿静待真正赏识自己的人。
Though highly talented, he disdained boasting of his own worth and preferred to wait quietly for someone who truly appreciated him.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 衒玉自售
- Pinyin: zuì yù zì shòu
- Literal Translation: boast, jade, self, sell
- Category: Attitude
- Characters: 4