📖 Meaning
Success depends solely on one's own strength and effort. Used when facing heavy tasks and many difficulties, emphasizing that whether one can achieve the goal comes down primarily to one's own power and ability rather than external factors.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom employs the classical Chinese grammatical pattern 唯…是… (wéi…shì…), in which the demonstrative pronoun 是 serves to invert the object (力, 'strength') before the verb (视, 'to regard'), creating an emphatic construction. The pattern is well attested in pre-Qin and Han texts and serves to highlight the inverted word. The idiom encapsulates a classical outlook: when burdens are heavy and obstacles numerous, the question of whether the goal can be reached is answered not by luck or circumstance but by one's own exertion.
💡 Example Usage
任务艰巨，能否达成目标唯力是视。
The task is arduous; whether the goal can be achieved depends entirely on one's own strength.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 唯力是视
- Pinyin: wéi lì shì shì
- Literal Translation: only, strength, this, regard
- Category: Determination
- Characters: 4