dé​yú​wàng​quán

to reach the goal and forget the means

得鱼忘筌 得魚忘筌 dé​yú​wàng​quán
to reach the goal and forget the means
to grasp the underlying meaning or essence and discard the literal words or forms; (of a scholar or sage) to focus on the truth rather than the vehicle of expression; based on 庄子 zhuāng​zǐ
to be ungrateful
to forget the people or tools that helped once one's goal has been attained; to cast aside one's supporters or roots after succeeding

Frequency

Written text
0.006 per million

Cross-References

See

Sources

Frequency data
BCC Corpus (BLCU)