Q0460

“The fish trap exists for the fish; once you have the fish,…” — Zhuangzi (Zhuangzi, External Things)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Zhuangzi, External Things. Theme: philosophy.

English

The fish trap exists for the fish; once you have the fish, you forget the trap.
Thinker Zhuangzi
School Daoism
Source Zhuangzi, External Things
Theme Browse all themes
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Zhuangzi, External Things and files it under Daoism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi (Zhuang Zhou, c. 369–c.

Interpretation

Zhuangzi uses the fish trap to argue that language is instrumental and should be set aside once it has done its work. The target is not language itself but the habit of treating words as what they point to, so that possession of the formula is mistaken for understanding. This is why his own writings are full of jokes, paradox, and discarded images — the form is designed to prevent attachment. The claim is about the relation between a tool and its purpose.

Why it matters

It is a useful check in learning anything: have you kept the phrase and lost the thing? Being able to state a principle is not the same as being able to act from it.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Zhuangzi. (n.d.). The fish trap exists for the fish; once you have the fish, you forget the trap. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0460

MLA: Zhuangzi. “The fish trap exists for the fish; once….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0460.

Chicago: Zhuangzi. “The fish trap exists for the fish; once….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0460.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “The fish trap exists for the fish; once…”?

The passage is attributed to Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi, External Things. The archive attributes this English wording to Zhuangzi, External Things and files it under Daoism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Zhuangzi mean by philosophy?

This passage is indexed under . Those labels identify the concepts it can illuminate; they do not replace the argument surrounding it in Zhuangzi, External Things.

Same thinker

More from Zhuangzi

  1. Therefore it is said: The consummate person has no self; the spiritual person has no merit; the sage has no name.
  2. My life has a limit, but knowledge has none. To pursue the limitless with the limited is perilous!
  3. When the springs dry up and fish are stranded together on land, they moisten one another with dampness and wet one another with foam — but better to forget one another in the rivers and lakes.
  4. Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly…He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly was dreaming it was Zhou.
  5. Relying on the heavenly pattern, I strike into the large gaps, guide through the large openings, and follow what is inherently so.

All quotations by Zhuangzi

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

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