All hat and no cattle

    徒有其表

    A: John said he has a great startup plan and will find investment for his project.

    B: I know from past experience that he is all hat and no cattle.

    Note: This term describes someone who is full of big talk but lacking action, power, or substance. People also say "big hat, no cattle." "Hat" refers to the big and showy cowboy hat herders wear in the American west. They make the cowboys look very impressive. Cowboys ride horses and herd cows. The fact that they have cattle to care and fend for suggests that they're wealthy to some degree, or at least they were in the frontier days. If people wore cowboy hats but were not seen riding horses and had no cattle to own and herd, they were described negatively as "all hat and no cattle."