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千里の道も一歩より senri no michi mo ippo yori A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step

千里の道も一歩より (senri no michi mo ippo yori), even a road of a thousand ri begins from one step, is a proverb made from the Laozi. Its own wording is in the prose of the Zen monk Takuan, who died in 1646. This study follows it into English, where the popular sentence is Lionel Giles's single step of 1904.

Japanese Scroll of A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step (senri no michi mo ippo yori) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step千里の道も一歩よりsenri no michi mo ippo yori

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

千里の道も一歩より, even a road of a thousand ri begins from one step, is a Japanese proverb made from the third of three images in a chapter of the Laozi on acting before things have grown. This study follows the image into Japanese through a motto of the Tang poet Bai Juyi and the kana preface of the Kokinshū, the first imperial anthology of Japanese poems, and finds the proverb's own wording in the prose of the Zen monk Takuan, who died in 1646, and in print in Kaibara Ekiken's book of everyday precepts of 1708, before it runs through moral readers, schoolbooks and sermons to the dictionaries today. In English the Laozi's line has a thousand miles from its first translator, John Chalmers, in 1868, and a single step from James Legge in 1891; the popular sentence is Lionel Giles's of 1904, and the Japanese proverb itself was in English by 1872. It finds that the proverb has been a maxim about learning and small beginnings since the seventeenth century, long before a dictionary attached Laozi's name to it.

Overview

The sense. The tradition holds one sense: great things are built from small beginnings, close at hand. What changes is the frame around it. In the Laozi the image is one of three in an argument about the sage who acts before trouble has grown and who takes as much care at the end as at the beginning. Bai Juyi turned it into a motto for his own conduct, and the Kokinshū preface turned it to the growth of poetry. In Japanese the proverb is put to learning (Takuan's one character today and one tomorrow, Ekiken's study of the Way), to a woman's conduct, a child's lessons, a sermon's self-examination, an admiral's first command. The dictionaries name Laozi as the source; almost none of the proverb's users do.

The words. The Chinese line is 千里之行，始於足下: a journey of a thousand li begins beneath the feet. It has no road and no step. The Japanese proverb has both, and the step was already in Chinese: the Chan masters of the Song said 欲行千里，一步為初, to go a thousand li, one step is the beginning. 千里 is a thousand ri, a very long way; the Japanese ri and the Chinese li are different lengths and neither is a mile. 道, road, stands where the Laozi has 行, journey, the same image seen from the other end. も is even: even a road of a thousand ri. 一歩, one step, stands where the Laozi has 足下, beneath the feet. Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 reads it ippo; the women's reader of 1755 glosses it ひとあし, hitoashi, one footstep. より is from, and it is the older particle, the one Takuan and Ekiken write; から is in print by 1889, and every current dictionary headword has it. The verb, 起こる or 始まる, arises or begins, varies, and the proverb often drops it. So there are three Japanese forms: the Chinese read as Chinese, 千里の行も足下に始まる, which is a dictionary headword and what a biographer writes in 1915; the proverb with より, a saying before 1646; and the proverb with から, by 1889 and the headword today. The line as words: even a thousand-ri road, from one step.

The text in English. The English begins with Chalmers's thousand miles of 1868 and Legge's single step of 1891, and the popular sentence joins the two in Giles's translation of 1904. The Japanese proverb itself is in Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 and in the mid-century proverb collections.

The historical record

The Laozi, chapter sixty-four. The line is the third of three images in a chapter about acting on things before they have grown: 合抱之木，生於毫末；九層之臺，起於累土；千里之行，始於足下 [1]. James Legge, whose 1891 translation is printed beside the Chinese at the Chinese Text Project: The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout; the tower of nine storeys rose from a (small) heap of earth; the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step [1]. The chapter goes on to its own conclusion, 慎終如始，則無敗事, be as careful at the end as at the beginning and nothing will fail; the proverb keeps the first image and drops the warning.

Bai Juyi 白居易, A Second Motto for the Right of My Seat (續座右銘). The Tang poet made the image a rule for himself: 千里始足下，高山起微塵，吾道亦如此, a thousand li begins at the feet, a high mountain rises from fine dust; my way is like this too [2]. He sets a mountain where the Laozi has a tower, and the pairing of the far road and the high mountain is what Japanese first took.

The Kokinshū 古今和歌集, commissioned 905, the kana preface. 遠き處も出で立つ足もとよりはじまりて年月をわたり、高き山も、麓の塵ひぢよりなりて、天雲たなびくまで生ひのぼれるが如くに、この歌もかくの如くなるべし, as a distant place begins from the foot that sets out and takes months and years, as a high mountain grows from the dust and mud at its foot until it rises to the trailing clouds, so it must be with this poetry [3]. Laurel Rasplica Rodd's translation notes that the passage is based on Bai Juyi's lines [4]. The image is in Japanese prose in the preface of the first imperial anthology; the proverb's wording is not there yet.

Before 1646. Takuan Sōhō 沢庵宗彭 (1573–1646), Reirōshū (玲瓏集). The Zen monk, explaining 作, the working of things, one of the ten suchnesses (十如是): けふ一字まなび、あす一字まなび、たゆまずしてなさば、いかなる事もなしつべし。千里の道も一步より起るといふがごとし, learn one character today and one character tomorrow, and if you do not slacken there is nothing you cannot do; it is as they say, even a thousand-ri road arises from one step [5]. The proverb with より, called a saying. The text here is a 1934 edition.

1708. Kaibara Ekiken 貝原益軒, Yamato zokkun (大和俗訓), a book of everyday precepts. 千里の道も、一歩よりはじまる。たとへば、遠き所に行くに、出でたつ足下よりはじまりて、力め行きて巳まざれば、屆かざることなし。學んで道に至るも、又かくの如くなるべし, even a thousand-ri road begins from one step: going to a distant place begins from the foot that sets out, and if you strive on without stopping there is nowhere you do not reach; to learn and arrive at the Way must be so too [6]. Ekiken glosses the proverb in the Kokinshū preface's own words, 出でたつ足下よりはじまりて.

The proverb collections. Fujii Otoo's 藤井乙男 dictionary of proverbs of 1910 gathers the early witnesses under 千里ノ道モ一步ヨリ起ル: the Kokinshū preface; the kyōgen Irumagawa (入間川), whose lord, riding home from the capital, says so as he reaches Suruga; the Laozi; and the Edo collection 本朝俚諺, which sets the proverb under a line of the 大戴禮, 不積跬步，無以致千里, without piling up half-steps there is no reaching a thousand li [7]. In a 1918 edition of kyōgen the lord's lines read 千里の道も一歩よりおこると、都を出る時は遙〴〵の樣に思ふたれども、はや駿河の國迄は來たな, even a thousand-ri road arises from one step, as they say: when I left the capital I thought it a long, long road, and already I have come as far as Suruga [8]; which text of the play that edition follows is not stated, and its date is not known here.

1755. 晩香散人玉枝子, Instructive Poems for Women (女朗詠教訓歌), an illustrated moral reader with pictures by Nishikawa Sukenobu 西川祐信. The proverb credited to the ancients: 古人も千里の道も一歩よりはじまるといへば善人となるもあらき人になるもこゝろひとつのわざなれば, as the ancients say, even a thousand-ri road begins from one step, so becoming a good person or a rough one is the work of one heart alone [9]. The leaf glosses 一歩 as ひとあし. It is a homily on small faults growing large; Laozi is not named.

1876 to 1893. Meiji schoolbooks. Readers on hygiene, morals and the training of the young carry the proverb in the より form, which is how a Meiji child met it [10].

1889. 泉本宗三郎, ed., Proverbs (ことわざ). The earliest witness here for the modern particle: 千里の道も一歩から [11].

1908. 河崎顕了, Sermons for the Home (家庭説教). 千里の道も一步から始まるものとすれば、私共は念々に反省し刻々に注意して, if even a thousand-ri road begins from one step, then we must examine ourselves thought by thought and take care moment by moment [12]. The proverb is put to daily self-examination.

1915. Yokoyama Kendō 横山健堂, Admiral Tōgō (大将東郷). The Chinese line read as Chinese, at an admiral's first battle: 千里の行も足下に始まる。遠行の第一步は、愼重の覺悟あるべし, a thousand-ri journey begins beneath the feet; the first step of a long road should be taken with grave resolve [13]. By 1936 the National Diet Library's digitized books and periodicals carry 千里の道も一歩 in more than a thousand items, the most its full-text index returns for one phrase.

The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉 has two headwords. Under 千里の道も一歩から: 遠い旅路も第一歩から始まる。どんな大事業も手近なところから始まることのたとえ, even a distant journey begins with the first step; a figure for how any great undertaking begins close at hand, with 千里の道も一歩より起こる as a variant [14]. Under 千里の行も足下に始まる, marked 《「老子」六四から》: どんな遠大な事業も手近なところから始まるというたとえ, with 千里の道も一歩より始まる listed as a variant [15]. 故事成語を知る辞典 gives the sense as 大きなことを成し遂げるには、手近なところから着実に始めていくことが肝要である, to accomplish something great, what matters is to begin steadily from what is near, notes that the Laozi said it of troubles, which are easier to meet while they are new, where it is now said of undertakings, and gives as its example a novelist's warlord in the 1960s: いっぺんには天下はとれぬ。千里の道も一歩からだという, you cannot take the realm in one go; a thousand-ri road, from one step, as they say [14].

What is not a source. The popular English attributes the line to Confucius; the Laozi is its source. The Japanese proverb is not a translation of the Laozi: the image came into Japanese by way of Bai Juyi and the Kokinshū, and the step is in the Chan saying 欲行千里，一步為初, which the Song masters Yangqi Fanghui 楊岐方會, Yuanwu 圓悟 and Dahui 大慧 all use [16]. The chapter's own conclusion, care at the end as at the beginning, is the line's context and not part of the proverb. The ancients of 1755 and as they say in Takuan and the kyōgen are a proverb's way of citing, not a source.

The text in English

1868. John Chalmers, The Speculations on Metaphysics, Polity, and Morality, of "The Old Philosopher," Lau-Tsze, chapter LXIV, page 50. The tree that fills the arms grew from a slender twig. The castle of nine stories was raised from a mound of earth. The journey of a thousand miles commenced with one pace. The first English Laozi already turns the li into miles [17].

1872. James Curtis Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, second edition, page 141. Under 歩, a step in walking: Sen ri no michi mo ippo yori hajimu, a journey of a thousand miles is begun by taking one step. The Japanese proverb in English, with Chalmers's miles [18].

1884. Frederic Henry Balfour, Taoist Texts. A journey of a thousand li begins with a foot's pace [19].

1891. James Legge, The Texts of Taoism, chapter 64. The journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step. Legge supplies a single step for 足下, beneath the feet, the first translator here to write it [1].

1904. Lionel Giles, The Sayings of Lao Tzŭ, page 51. The tree which needs two arms to span its girth sprang from the tiniest shoot. Yon tower, nine storeys high, rose from a little mound of earth. A journey of a thousand miles began with a single step. Chalmers's miles and Legge's single step in one sentence [20]. The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs gives it as the English proverb's first citation [21].

1934. Arthur Waley, The Way and Its Power, chapter 64. The journey of a thousand leagues began with what was under the feet. Waley keeps 足下 literal and turns the li into leagues [22].

1963. D. C. Lau, Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching, Penguin, chapter LXIV. A tree that can fill the span of a man's arms / Grows from a downy tip; / A terrace nine storeys high / Rises from hodfuls of earth; / A journey of a thousand miles / Starts from beneath one's feet. Lau keeps miles and returns the last line to the Chinese, beneath one's feet, where Legge had a single step [23].

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, page 162. Senri no michi mo ippo yori su: "Even a journey of a thousand ri must start with one step." A "ri," the unit of distance in Japan, is 2.44 miles. The above proverb means everything must be done patiently in regular sequence [24].

The popular form. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step is Giles's sentence in the present tense [20][21]. The English Wikipedia article on the phrase records the misattribution to Confucius [25].

Today. The stored title is the popular English of the Chinese line, and it sits closer to the Japanese proverb than to the Laozi: it has the step, which the Laozi does not. Miles for 里 is the one liberty, taken by the first English translator in 1868 and by every English reader since. What a rendering of this line must keep is the pairing of the very long and the very small, and the word begins.

A reading

The English title is right in sense and is the sentence every English reader already knows. What it cannot carry is that the line is the third image of a chapter whose point is care at the end as at the beginning, and that the Japanese proverb came by way of a Tang poet's motto and the preface of the first imperial anthology, and has been a maxim about learning and small beginnings since the seventeenth century, long before a dictionary attached Laozi's name to it.

References

  1. 『老子』第六十四章, at the Chinese Text Project, with James Legge's translation of 1891. https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing#n11655
  2. 白居易「續座右銘」, in 祝穆 編『新編古今事文類聚』. National Diet Library pid 11892738, scan 6. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11892738/1/6
  3. 「古今和歌集序」, in 金子元臣『古今和歌集評釈』, 明治書院, 1927, p. 57. National Diet Library pid 1119997, scan 40. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1119997/1/40
  4. Laurel Rasplica Rodd with Mary Catherine Henkenius, translators, Kokinshū: A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern, Princeton University Press, 1984 (Cheng & Tsui paperback, 1996), Japanese Preface, note 16.
  5. 沢庵宗彭『玲瓏集』十如是, in 伊藤康安 編解『新釈沢庵和尚法語』, 昭和書房, 1934, p. 188. National Diet Library pid 1259004, scan 105. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1259004/1/105
  6. 貝原益軒『大和俗訓』(1708), in the 1911 edition, p. 42. National Diet Library pid 992787, scan 25. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992787/1/25
  7. 藤井乙男 編『諺語大辞典』, 1910, 「千里ノ道モ一步ヨリ起ル」. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 302. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/302
  8. 狂言「入間川」, in 『滑稽諧謔能間狂言全書』, 1918, p. 229. National Diet Library pid 945559, scan 121. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945559/1/121
  9. 晩香散人玉枝子作, 西川祐信画『女朗詠教訓歌』, 1755. National Diet Library pid 2533881, scan 39. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533881/1/39
  10. National Diet Library, NDL Lab full-text search, 「一歩より」, six schoolbooks of 1876 to 1893, counted by decade. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/
  11. 泉本宗三郎 編『ことわざ』, 1889. National Diet Library pid 755532. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755532
  12. 河崎顕了『家庭説教』続, 法蔵館, 1908. National Diet Library pid 818384, scan 71. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/818384/1/71
  13. Yokoyama Kendō 横山健堂, 『大将東郷』, 春陽堂, 1915. National Diet Library pid 950830, scan 111. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/950830/1/111
  14. 「千里の道も一歩から」, デジタル大辞泉 · 故事成語を知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/千里の道も一歩から-1729075
  15. 「千里の行も足下に始まる」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/千里の行も足下に始まる-551444
  16. 欲行千里，一步為初: 『楊岐方會和尚語錄』, T47 no. 1994A, p. 642b25; 『圓悟佛果禪師語錄』 1, T47 no. 1997, p. 715b06; 『大慧普覺禪師語錄』 23 and 26, T47 no. 1998A, pp. 909a26 and 924b09; at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/search/kwic?work=T1994A&juan=1&q=欲行千里一步為初
  17. John Chalmers, translator, The Speculations on Metaphysics, Polity, and Morality, of "The Old Philosopher," Lau-Tsze, London, Trübner, 1868, p. 50. https://archive.org/details/speculationsonm00laogoog/page/n74
  18. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary, second edition, 1872, p. 141. National Diet Library pid 993689, scan 88. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689/1/88
  19. Frederic Henry Balfour, translator, Taoist Texts: Ethical, Political, and Speculative, London, Trübner, and Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1884. https://archive.org/details/taoisttextsethic00balf
  20. Lionel Giles, translator, The Sayings of Lao Tzŭ, London, The Orient Press, 1904, p. 51. https://archive.org/details/sayingslaotz00gilegoog/page/n53
  21. Jennifer Speake, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford University Press, 2015, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".
  22. Arthur Waley, translator, The Way and Its Power, 1934, chapter 64, at a third-party transcription. https://terebess.hu/english/tao/waley.html#Kap64
  23. D. C. Lau, translator, Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching, Penguin, 1963, chapter LXIV (Lau's passage 153).
  24. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, p. 162.
  25. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step", Wikipedia (English). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_journey_of_a_thousand_miles_begins_with_a_single_step

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations of the s32 draft; not re-run on the s323 amendment · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations of the s32 draft; not re-run on the s323 amendment

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 千里の道も一歩より (senri no michi mo ippo yori)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/senri-no-michi-mo-ippo-yori.