Monday, March 09, 2009

A multilingual bon mot for the week

滴水穿石

(di shui chuan shi - "Dripping water wears through a stone." Chinese proverb)


Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed saepe cadendo.

("A waterdrop hollows out a stone, not by force but by repeated dripping." Latin proverb)


I suspect many other languages have a similar expression. Would anyone care to contribute others?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My favorite saying when I was learning Spanish was "Dios da nueces a quien no tiene dientes" -- "God gives nuts to the toothless." I've asked around, but have yet to find a Chinese idiom that captures (for me) the cruel humor of the world quite so well. There's bound to be one.