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What is extremes meet?
An China idiom means that when things go to extremes, they will change in the opposite direction. The idiom comes from Lv Chunqiu Zhi Bo: "Everything must be missing, and the extremes of things must be reversed. source

"Lv Chunqiu Zhi Bo": "Everything will be lacking, and it will be extremely rebellious." "Pipe Cycle": "Things are extremely opposite, and life is called cycle." Song Chengyi was quoted in Song Zhuxi's Records of Recent Thoughts: "If Fuxi says it will come and go in seven days, there will be no interruption during this period. When Yang comes back to life, everything will be reversed. "

Example: Feng Ming's magnum, Cai Qing and Fiona Fang's History of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, seventy-seven: "The extremes must be reversed, and the son should return quickly. Otherwise, you should keep the promise of' recovering Chu'! "

Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals is a theoretical work edited by everyone in the late Warring States Period and Qin Dynasty. It was written in 239 BC (the eighth year of Qin Shihuang). This book is based on Confucianism, Taoism, Ming, Fa, Mohism, agriculture, military, Yin and Yang thoughts, and is full of profound wisdom. Among them, there are twelve words in Zhi Bo: "Everything will be lacking, and the extremes will be reversed, and the benefits will be lost." It's just a thorough statement of a proposition, and it's an extreme encounter.

Laozi, a famous thinker of Chu State in BC and founder of Taoist school, put forward and carried out this view from beginning to end. There is a saying in chapter 55 of Laozi's book "Tao Te Ching": "If things are strong, they will be old, which means they are not right."

Among them, "things are strong and old" means that things are strong and prosperous, and things are declining.

Sima Qian wrote in Records of the Historian Biography of Shu Tian: "If the husband is full, he will lose, and if things are prosperous, he will decline." It is a universal natural law to think that extremes meet.

Huai Nan Zi is a miscellaneous work, which is said to have been compiled by Liu An, king of Huai Nan, and his disciples in the early Western Han Dynasty. Among them, Xun seems to have a new formulation: "The rich rise and fall, the joy is extremely sad, and the day shifts to the moon and loses." Among them, the phrase "extreme joy begets sorrow" later developed into "extreme joy begets sorrow", and when it was combined with "extremes meet", it became a folk proverb "extreme joy begets sorrow". Although people's application has changed due to different specific contents, the basic skeleton of this proverb has not changed much.

The Biography of Han Dong Fang Shuo also left a famous saying: "Clear water means no fish, and people look at it without disciples." If the water is too clear, it is difficult for fish to survive; If people are too picky, it is difficult to find a partner. Advise people not to be too harsh, just ask too much. It's good to be able to do big things without being careless. There's no need to haggle over small things.

From the beginning, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms pointed out the development law of dynasty change in feudal society: the general trend of the world, the long is divided, and the long is combined. I don't know if this sentence was originally written by Luo Guanzhong himself, or if it quoted a popular proverb at that time. Anyway, everyone in China knows that it's useless.

A Dream of Red Mansions, a classical literary masterpiece, is a history of the rise and fall of China's feudal dynasty. The song of happiness sung by the lame Taoist priest in Cao Gong's works is simply the integration of proverbs of "joy begets sorrow", and Zhen's "complete realization" of the song of happiness seems to be a lament of the feudal landlord class over the irreversible historical decline. The story of Cao Xueqin's "daughter made of water" all implies the fate of extremes meet. Wang Xifeng: "The official was too clever, but he missed your life!" " Jia Xichun, "poor embroidered mother, lying alone beside the ancient Buddha of Deng Qing." Wonderful jade is noble in nature, but "poor jade eventually sinks into mud" ...