第一則：Making His Mark 刻舟求劍

　　A man from the state of Chu was taking a boat across a river when he dropped his sword into the water carelessly. Immediately he made a mark on the side of the boat where the sword dropped, hoping to find it later. When the boat stopped moving, he went into the water to search for his sword at the place where he had marked the boat. As we know, the boat had moved but the sword had not. Isn't this a very foolish way to look for a sword?

　　楚國有個人坐船渡江時，他不小心把自己的一把寶劍掉落江中。他馬上掏出一把小刀，在寶劍落水的船舷上刻上一個記號。船靠岸后，那楚人立即從船上刻記號的地方跳下水去撈取掉落的寶劍。他怎么找得到寶劍呢?船繼續行駛，而寶劍卻不會再移動。像他這樣去找劍，真是太愚蠢可笑了。

　　第二則：Draw a Snake and Add Feet to It 畫蛇添足

　　Long long ago, several people had a jar of wine among them and all of them wanted to drink it by himself. So they set a rule that every one would draw a snake on the ground and the man who finished first would have the wine. One man finished his snake very soon and he was about to drink the wine when he saw the others were still busy drawing, so he decided to draw the feet to the snake. However, before he could finish the feet, another man finished and grabbed the jar from him, saying, "Who has ever seen a snake with feet?" The story of "Draw a snake and add feet to It." tells us going too far is as bad as not going far enough.

　　古時幾個人分一壺酒。他們都想獨自喝完那壺酒，所以就定了一個規矩：每人在地上畫一條蛇，誰畫得最快，這壺酒就歸誰。有一個人很快就把蛇畫好了。他正打算喝這壺酒時，看見別人都還在忙著畫，就決定給蛇再畫上幾只腳。結果，他的蛇腳還沒加完，另一個人已經把蛇畫好了。那人一下把酒壺奪了過去，說："有誰見過長腳的蛇?"。這個故事告訴我們這樣的道理：做得過分和做得不夠都是不對的。