10 Chinese Idioms for Graduation & Commencement

Sudden, remarkable success

Literal: One cry startles everyone

King Zhuang of Chu spent three years on the throne issuing no orders at all. An officer put him a riddle about a bird that for three years had neither stirred its wings nor called, and the king answered that though it had not flown, when it flew it would reach the heavens, and though it had not crie...

Persistence achieves anything

Literal: Water drops pierce stone

The Song collection Helin Yulu attaches this to the magistrate Zhang Guaiya, who had a clerk flogged for a single copper coin, was told he would not dare behead him for it, and wrote the judgment before doing exactly that: a coin a day is a thousand coins in a thousand days, and 绳锯木断，水滴石穿 — a rope u...

Add crucial finishing touch

Literal: Dot dragon's eyes

Zhang Sengyou painted four dragons on a temple wall in Jinling and left them without pupils, saying that if he dotted the eyes they would fly away. Pressed, he dotted two. Thunder split the wall and those two went up into the cloud; the two he had left blind were still there. The account is in Zhang...

Already at a very high level of attainment

Literal: Hundred foot pole top

A verse of the Tang Chan master Changsha Jingcen, recorded in the Jingde Chuandenglu: a man at the top of a hundred-foot (百尺) pole (竿头) has attained something, but it is not yet real — he must step forward from there. Standing at the tip already looks like the end of the climb, which is exactly the ...

Practice with determination

Literal: Hear the rooster, rise and drill the sword

Zu Ti and Liu Kun shared a bed as junior officials and shared an ambition to see the north recovered. The History of the Jin records that in the middle of the night Zu Ti heard (闻) a cock (鸡) crowing out of hours — an omen ordinarily counted unlucky — kicked Liu Kun awake and said this is not an evi...

Progress from basic to advanced

Literal: Enter hall reach inner room

Confucius said of his disciple Zilu that he had ascended (登) to the hall (堂) but not yet entered (入) the inner room (室) — competent, and not yet finished. The architecture is doing exact work: a Chinese house put the hall first and the private chambers behind it, so the sequence is fixed and the sec...

Success comes naturally

Literal: Water comes channel forms

Su Shi wrote it to a friend who was worrying ahead of events: when the water arrives (水到) the channel forms (渠成), there is no need to plan for it in advance. The image is of water finding its own course rather than an engineer cutting one. What the phrase claims is not that effort is unnecessary but...

Persevere until success

Literal: Carve and not stop

This comes from the Xunzi: carve and give up, and rotten wood will not break; carve (锲) without ceasing (不舍), and metal and stone can be worked. The contrast is deliberate — persistence beats material, and abandoning the attempt defeats even the easy case. It is about the carving of metal and stone,...

Small things build achievement

Literal: Gather sand make tower

The Lotus Sutra counts even children heaping sand into toy pagodas among the acts that lead toward buddhahood. Gathering (聚) sand (沙) makes (成) a tower (塔): no single grain matters, and the tower is nothing but grains. The teaching is deliberately generous, treating the smallest and least serious ef...

Reach highest attainable level

Literal: Climb peak reach limit

In the Shishuo Xinyu, Sima Yu — later Emperor Jianwen of Jin — answers the Buddhist claim that refining the spirit can make a man a sage: 不知便可登峰造极不？然陶练之功，尚不可诬 — I do not know whether that climbs (登) the peak (峰) and arrives (造) at the furthest point (极), but the work of refinement cannot be dismisse...