The proverb
滴水穿石 ('dripping water bores through stone') captures the Chinese ideal of patient, sustained effort overcoming any obstacle. Its earliest form appears in
罗大经's
《鹤林玉露》 of the Southern Song dynasty, in a story about a county magistrate punishing a clerk who stole even one coin a day: 'one day one coin, a thousand days a thousand - string saws cut wood, dripping water bores stone.'
