The proverb
滴水穿石 (dī shuǐ chuān shí, '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》 (Hèlín Yùlù) 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.'
