持之以恒
chí zhī yǐ héng · HSK 7
to persevere
💪✊ hold (持) + it (之) + with (以) + constancy (恒) — grip and never let go
Each character spells out the recipe: 持 hold, 之 it, 以 with, 恒 permanence. Whatever you grab onto, maintain your grip with unwavering steadiness.
持 — hand 扌 + temple 寺 (phonetic)
持 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The hand radical 扌 carries the meaning 'to hold' or 'grasp', while 寺 supplies the sound (it once read close to chí). Originally depicting a hand holding something firmly, it broadened to mean 'maintain', 'support', or 'keep' over time.
之 — foot 止 above ground line 一
Originally a pictograph of a foot (止) stepping forward from a baseline, meaning 'to go' or 'to proceed'. Over time the concrete 'going' sense faded, and 之 was borrowed as a grammatical particle marking possession ('of') or as a pronoun ('it'), which became its dominant use in Classical Chinese.
以 — phonetic 㠯 (plow/tool) + 人 (person)
Originally a pictograph of a hand-held plow or tool (㠯), later combined with 人 (person) to suggest 'using' something. The core meaning 'to use' extended metaphorically to 'by means of', 'with', and 'because of'. In modern Chinese it functions mainly as a grammatical particle.