不管白猫黑猫,捉住老鼠就是好猫

bù guǎn bái māo hēi māo , zhuō zhù lǎo shǔ jiù shì hǎo māo

it doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black; as long as it catches mice it's a good cat (variant of a Sichuanese saying used in a speech by Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平|邓小平[Deng4 Xiao3 ping2] in 1962, usually associated with his economic reforms starting in 1978, in which pragmatism was favored over ideological purity)

no; not so

guǎn

variant of 管[guan3]

bái

white

māo

cat (CL:隻|只[zhi1])

hēi

abbr. for Heilongjiang province 黑龍江|黑龙江[Hei1 long2 jiang1]

māo

cat (CL:隻|只[zhi1])

,

zhuō

to clutch

zhù

to live

lǎo

prefix used before the surname of a person or a numeral indicating the order of birth of the children in a family or to indicate affection or familiarity

shǔ

(bound form) rat; mouse

jiù

(after a suppositional clause) in that case; then

shì

to be (followed by substantives only)

hǎo

good

māo

cat (CL:隻|只[zhi1])