10 Chinese Sayings About Success — "Heaven Rewards the Diligent"

Effort is eventually repaid

Literal: Heaven's way rewards diligence

Heaven's way (天道) repays (酬) diligence (勤). 酬 is the word for requiting a debt or returning a toast, so the claim is transactional: the effort is owed something, and the universe is the party that settles. That is a stronger position than simply hoping hard work pays off, and it is close to the argu...

Work day and night

Literal: Wear stars crown moon

To wear (披) the stars (星) and be crowned with (戴) the moon (月) — a person who leaves before dawn and returns after dark, so that the sky is never light when they are outdoors. The phrase belongs to vernacular literature and is applied to farmers, travellers and students. It differs from ordinary har...

Constantly improve

Literal: Perfect seek more perfect

This descends from Zhu Xi's commentary on a line in the Analects about cutting and polishing: what has already been worked finely (精) should be worked finer still — 治之已精，益求其精. The phrase assumes the work is already good, which is what distinguishes it from ordinary diligence; the refinement it deman...

Success after long preparation

Literal: Thick accumulation thin launch

This is from Su Shi of the Song dynasty, who advised a friend to observe widely but take sparingly, to accumulate thickly and release thinly — 博观而约取，厚积而薄发. Deep (厚) accumulation (积) should issue in slight (薄) output (发). The counsel is against publishing early and often: what is put out should be a ...

Invest utmost effort and emotion

Literal: Vomit heart drip blood

Li He wrote by riding out with a bag, dropping lines into it as they came, and working them up at night; his mother, looking at the bag, said this boy would not stop until he had vomited out (呕) his heart (心). Han Yu, in a related image, wrote of cutting out his liver for paper and dripping (沥) his ...

So absorbed as to neglect basic needs

Literal: Abandon sleep forget food

To give up (废) sleep (寝) and forget (忘) food (食). The two verbs are different and the difference matters: sleep is deliberately abandoned, and meals are simply not noticed. That combination is what the phrase describes — absorption deep enough that one need is sacrificed and the other never surfaces...

Build up from nothing; self-made

Literal: Empty hands start a household

Starting (起) a household (家) with bare (白) hands (手). 白 is empty here rather than the colour — the same 白 as in 白跑一趟, a trip made for nothing — so what is claimed concerns what was in the hands at the beginning, which is nothing at all. 家 is a household or an estate rather than a company, and that o...

Practice makes perfect

Literal: Familiarity can produce skill

Ouyang Xiu tells of an old oil seller who watched a celebrated archer at practice and nodded, only slightly impressed. Challenged, he set a gourd on the ground, laid a coin over its mouth and poured oil through the square hole without wetting the metal: 无他，但手熟尔 — nothing to it, my hand is simply pra...

Work tirelessly and diligently

Literal: Diligently, without fatigue

孜 is diligence, and doubling it gives the unbroken kind; with 不倦, never (不) tiring (倦), the phrase adds that the effort has not decayed. The second half carries the real claim, because it is about duration rather than intensity — anybody can work hard, and what is being praised is that the rate neve...

Achieve success and fame

Literal: Merit achieved, name established

The work (功) completed (成) and the name (名) established (就). Both halves are achievements and the order is causal: the reputation follows the accomplishment rather than accompanying it. That is what makes the phrase retrospective. It describes a career that is finished rather than one going well, wh...