18

A Chinese expression goes:

能骗就骗
(Néng piàn jiù piàn.)
(If you can trick/cheat, then trick/cheat.)

The idea is that there is no reason to be honest just for the sake of being honest. That is, if you can benefit from a dishonest action and know that you definitely won’t suffer any financial, reputational, or other damage that outweighs the benefit, then you should act dishonestly. To put it simply, if you can cheat and get away with it, then cheat.

My question is this: How is this idea commonly/idiomatically expressed in German?

I did a lot of research by making various Google search requests and reading lists of German proverbs, but was unable to find anything close enough:

  • The closest thing I could find is:

    Wer es allen recht machen will muss früh aufstehen.
    (He who wants to do right things to everyone has to wake up early.)

    This sounds to me like:

    If you want to be fair and just to everyone, you will have to live a very hard life.

    and is apparently a sort of justification of cheating, but I am unsure as to what the standard interpretation is. Even if it is the same as mine, this German phrase is rather weak and indirect as compared to the Chinese expression, whose idea is to cheat whenever possible.

  • I also found an aphorism by Otto von Bismarck:

    Prinzipien haben heißt, mit einer Stange quer im Mund einen Waldlauf machen.
    (Having principles means to run through the forest holding a pole with your teeth.)

    Although this phrase apparently can be used as a justification of being unscrupulous, it seems to be rather about impracticality of being too rigid in the most general sense.

Other languages have pretty direct equivalents:

  • An English saying goes:

    Never give a sucker an even break.

    This phrase means that one should take advantage of those who are not well informed if given the chance, and is fully equivalent to the Chinese expression, as the logic is fully preserved: If you can trick, then trick → If he can be tricked, then trick him → If he is a sucker, then trick him → Never give a sucker an even break. The emphasis by the word never is very much in the spirit of the Chinese expression.

  • Russian sayings are pretty direct, too (link):

    не обманешь – не продашь
    (If you don’t lie, you won’t sell)

    не наебёшь – не проживешь
    (If you don’t f*ck people over, you won’t survive.)

Mitsuko
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    Das stellt nun allerdings die Chinesen in kein gutes Licht. – Christian Geiselmann Jun 29 '19 at 21:19
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    You misinterpret the Wer es allen recht machen will, muss früh aufstehen. This does not mean that people who try to please everybody will have a hard life (i.e. it is an undesirable thing to do), it means: This is a lot of work, it is time-consuming. But the message, if phrased that way, is not necessarily that one should not do it. – Christian Geiselmann Jun 29 '19 at 21:33
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    @ChristianGeiselmann keep in mind that the Chinese language has a lot of set phrases that describe bad behaviour. Mitsuko's interpretation that this "saying" is giving the advice that you should cheat, instead of criticizing cheating, is not really supported by how I've seen this phrase used, though some people may well use it like that. – KWeiss Jul 01 '19 at 06:50
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    @KWeiss What are other readings of this proverb? – Kami Kaze Jul 01 '19 at 08:01
  • Wer es allen recht machen will muss früh aufstehen could be interpreted that way but it really referes to the public sphere where your action will affect your reputations. You can't make everyone agree with your choices. – hajef Jul 01 '19 at 09:48
  • It means it will be a LOT of work. – TaW Jul 01 '19 at 14:16
  • Cannot give an answer. Maybe "Der Zweck heiligt die Mittel." - "The end justifies the means." Meaning: Do what is necessary to achieve your goal. Used to quiet (ones own) conscience, when you know your actions are morally questionable. – Sebastian Jul 01 '19 at 15:49
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    @KamiKaze it's not a proverb, more like a "phrase". You could use it like "He was a real villain, cheat-as-much-as-you-can was his way". It's not (normally) advice, although you could, of course, say something like "cheat-as-much-as-you-can is how life should be lived". – KWeiss Jul 02 '19 at 09:06
  • @ChristianGeiselmann I also found it odd -- proverbs encouraging anti-social behavior are rare in most (surviving) cultures. I wanted to ask about it over on the Chinese SE and discovered a question was there already. (Possible that both are triggered by the same popular youtube video.) Turns out it's perhaps originally Cantonese and apparently does not endorse cheating but describes a (habitual) cheater. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Jul 04 '19 at 12:44
  • @PeterA.Schneider : "proverbs encouraging anti-social behavior are rare in most (surviving) cultures" What about the English and Russian expressions I provided in my post? There are more English and Russian expressions like those, as I learned by asking on the English and Russian SE. – Mitsuko Jul 04 '19 at 12:47
  • @PeterA.Schneider : I can also show you a Mongolian proverb: "Ураг төрлийн хол нь, ус түлшний ойр нь дээр." Translation: Kins and relatives better far, water and fuel better near. Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Mongolian_proverbs – Mitsuko Jul 04 '19 at 12:51
  • @PeterA.Schneider : The author of the question on the Chinese SE is me. I asked that question on the Chinese SE because I got conflicting opinions about the actual usage of 能骗就骗 in Chinese after I posted my questions about Russian, English, and German idiomatic ways of expressing the idea that there is no reason to be honest just for the sake of being honest. – Mitsuko Jul 04 '19 at 13:17
  • @Mitsuko Oh, I should have realized that it was you who asked that question! :-) How inattentive. Anyway, some of the examples you quote are not really encouraging bad behavior; the others I'd simply consider exceptions (without having any evidence to back that up). – Peter - Reinstate Monica Jul 04 '19 at 13:20

8 Answers8

34

I cannot think of a really close equivalent, because your proverb shows an attitude that is not well received - at least few people would publicly admit they feel this way. The closest one that comes to my mind is

Nimm, was Du kriegen kannst

which literally translates to take whatever you can but rather means to take any benefit that is offered or available up to the point where you exploit someones generosity or take something that you may formally claim even if you are not the intended beneficiary of the rule
Still by saying this you exhibit an attitude many people might not agree to. It is not a widely accepted rule of behaviour.

Volker Landgraf
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27

There is a common German proverb from a slightly different angle:

Der Ehrliche ist immer der Dumme.

translating to "The honest one will always turn out to be the dumb one", or paraphrased: "Acting honest is just not worth it".

The connotation can be a bit different though, I believe. Often, the proverb is used by someone who has been honest himself and lost out to someone who wasn't, and who uses it to complain that the world isn't fair... without necessarily changing his mind about his own willingness to cheat (well, maybe a little).

Annatar
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21

There is an idiom referring to the ten commandments.

Das elfte Gebot heißt: Du sollst dich nicht erwischen lassen.

The eleventh commanments reads: Thou shalt not get caught.

One variation is

Du kannst alles machen, du darfst dich nur nicht erwischen lassen.

You can do everything you want, just don't get caught.

which is quite fitting for your saying.

The 2nd part of this became relatively famous because of a talk last year at the 35th Chaos Communication Congress (35C3) named "Du kannst alles hacken – du darfst dich nur nicht erwischen lassen."

mtwde
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9

Wo kein Kläger, da kein Richter.

No plaintiff, no judge.

baku
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    Die Redewendung zielt auf absichtlich gesetzwidriges Handeln (siehe dessen Herkunft). Das tritt weder automatisch durch Schummeln ein, noch andersrum. – AmigoJack Jun 29 '19 at 19:46
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    Kann es aber, von daher finde ich die Antwort ok. Außerdem bezieht sich Kläger und Richter nicht automatisch auf die juristische Definition, es kann auch im übertragenen Sinne gemeint sein. – plocks Jun 30 '19 at 11:12
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    @AmigoJack Die Anwendung ist vielfältig. Im allgemeinen bedeutet es solange es niemandem auffällt/stört, bleiben die Konsequenzen aus. Oder im erweiterten Sinne sogar so lang dein "Vergehen" nicht so schwerwiegend ist das jemand sich die Mühe macht es zu verfolgen,(Klage zu erheben) wird die Strafe aus bleiben (Richtspruch) – Kami Kaze Jul 01 '19 at 08:07
  • Solch ein Gebrauch ist ebenso falsch wie "sich entschuldigen": die Herkunft ist die fehlende Anklagemöglichkeit, nicht das fehlende Interesse. – AmigoJack Jul 01 '19 at 10:23
9

There are a couple German sayings or idioms which at least acknowledge selfishness as a general trait, although they don't seem to appreciate it, let alone encourage cheating:

  • Jeder ist sich selbst der Nächste
  • Das Hemd sitzt näher als die Hose (i.e. close things, in particular possessions, are more important than things farther away, e.g. other people's things).

The saying Gelegenheit macht Diebe (opportunity creates thieves) comes close to the idea in the Chinese proverb, but again it acknowledges more than it endorses and looks at the connection from the other end: It encourages you to lock your door and watch your valuables.

Peter - Reinstate Monica
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5

German has the counterpart:

Ehrlich währt am längsten.
(Honest lasts longest.)

I was raised to live that way, hence I’m disappointed by people who want to cheat me. But being honest nowadays has worn off drastically, though, so sayings like:

Der Klügere gibt nach.
(The wiser head gives in.)

have been expanded to:

Der Klügere gibt solange nach, bis er der Dumme ist.
(The wiser head gives in, until it is the dumber one.)

in the sense of remaining honest and not cheating.

Wrzlprmft
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AmigoJack
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3

If selling a used car or something there is the saying

Jeden Tag steht ein Dummer auf

which can be regarded as an invitation to exploit someone's naïvety (by obtaining a price over value) whenever the potential buyer is qualified.

Besides that we have the following euphemistic expressions:

[Chinesen sind] Schlitzohr[en]
(for cheaters)

mit List und Tücke
(for their behaviour, instead of »mit krimineller Energie«)

Pollitzer
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1

One similar saying is:

Was ich nicht weiß, macht mich nicht heiss.

It literally means "that which I do not know does not make me hot". Hot here means "angry" or "excited".

Although it has an "ich" in it, it's not normally used to talk about yourself. So for example, when teenagers sneak out of the house at night, this dialogue might happen:

Hans: "Haben dir deine Eltern nicht verboten, raus zu gehen?"
Peter: "Was ich nicht weiß, macht mich nicht heiss."

The meaning is that you will not get punished if the authority doesn't find out what you did.

KWeiss
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