塵も積もれば山となる chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru Even dust if piled can become a mountain

塵も積もれば山となる is about many small things, kept up, adding up to something great. A grain of dust is too small to notice, and enough of them make a mountain. The proverb counts on number, not on growth: the piling is the act, and it takes time. The small things have been learning, good deeds and coins, and the proverb leaves them to you. Whether it is for a long project, a savings jar or a daily practice is yours.

Fine dust piled into a mountain is an image of a Buddhist commentary put into Chinese in the early fifth century, and Bai Juyi's couplet of about 810, 千里始足下、高山起微塵, brought it into Japanese through Tsurayuki's preface to the Kokinshū in 905. A Noh play of about 1430 already puns on the saying, and in 1627 a tract on getting rich prints it as advice about money.

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