Semi-Cursive · gyōsho 行書 · VS5J
Semi-Cursive or gyōsho (行書) styles are a simplified and softer form of the kaisho styles. Gyōsho styles can be read by most Japanese.
継続は力なり
keizoku wa chikara nari
Persistence Is Strength
The Japanese saying that persistence is strength: keep at a thing, however small, and it turns into results.
by Master Eri Takase
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Eri Takase received the rank of Shihan, master, from two calligraphy societies, the Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodō, and won best-of-category awards in all-Japan national competitions. She has created calligraphy for people around the world for more than thirty years, and with your order she will be creating calligraphy for you.
In a ritual as old as calligraphy itself, Master Takase prepares the ink, meditatively rubbing the ink stick against the stone until it reaches the perfect consistency for the paper. Then, properly loading the brush with ink, she brushes your scroll. And only when the scroll is just right and meets her approval, she signs it and affixes her seal, completing your original scroll.
12 1/4" × 43" (31 × 109 cm) Japanese Scrolls
The scrolls have woven damask borders and special layered Japanese paper (washi), designed to last generations by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, with whom we have worked for over two decades.
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Your scroll arrives boxed, with a printed insert describing the words in detail.
Sending it as a gift? Add your message at checkout and we will include it with the insert.
Ships in 1-3 days from Washington State
Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days.
Your scroll ships from Master Takase's studio in Washington State. Shipping is calculated at checkout. We ship worldwide.
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Every order is covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. If your scroll arrives damaged, or we made an error, we replace it or refund you in full, including shipping.
Explanation
継続は力なり (keizoku wa chikara nari): persistence is strength. Even a small effort, if you keep at it, shows itself in results and succeeds.
継続 is continuing: carrying on what was already being done. 力 is strength or power, and なり is is. Older prints write the saying in the older characters, 繼續は力なり.
The saying was the motto of the storyteller Kurushima Takehiko, who carried children's stories across Japan. One writer remembered that wherever he went he was asked to brush something, and always wrote 継続は勢力なり, with 勢力, force, for 力.
In a couplet, the saying is paired with an aspiration: your heart's desire decides who you are; continuing is strength. In one essay the couplet is the creed of a man laughed at, called mad and stoned, who still hurries on along his road. The essay goes on: true strength is the strength of a heart that falls seven times and rises eight.
In Shodo (1989), a book on the brush written in English, William Reed brushed the saying and rendered it Persistence brings power. He read it through training in an art: continuity is the source of power.
The saying has no known author: the oldest use found by the National Diet Library's full-text search, a speech in the House of Representatives in March 1918, already calls it a known saying; the lay Shin Buddhist teacher Sumioka Yakō, often named as its author, set it as the second half of his own couplet, in print under his earlier pen name in his movement's magazine in December 1925.
Learn More About These Words
We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 継続は力なり.
