Effort & Endurance
手不釋卷
수불석권
shǒu bù shì juàn
Su-bul-seok-gwon
手
손 수
不
아닐 불
釋
풀 석
卷
책 권
Character by character
Meaning
Never letting the book leave your hand.
Origin
From the Records of the Three Kingdoms, describing Lü Meng of Wu after Sun Quan urged him to study.
How it is used
Praise for someone whose reading habit has become second nature.
Hanja手不釋卷
Simplified手不释卷
Korean reading수불석권
Pinyinshǒu bù shì juàn
Frequently asked questions
Q. What does Su-bul-seok-gwon mean?
手不釋卷 · Never letting the book leave your hand.
Q. Where does Su-bul-seok-gwon come from?
From the Records of the Three Kingdoms, describing Lü Meng of Wu after Sun Quan urged him to study.
Q. How is Su-bul-seok-gwon used?
Praise for someone whose reading habit has become second nature.
Idioms in the same group
愚公移山 U-gong-i-sanOld Man Yu moves the mountain — persistence accomplishes anything.磨斧作針 Ma-bu-jak-chimGrind an axe into a needle — dogged effort achieves even the impossible.螢雪之功 Hyeong-seol-ji-gongMerit earned reading by fireflies and snow-light — study achieved in hardship.切齒腐心 Jeol-chi-bu-simGrinding your teeth and letting your heart rot — nursing a grievance.臥薪嘗膽 Wa-sin-sang-damSleep on firewood and taste gall — endure any hardship to settle a score.百折不屈 Baek-jeol-bul-gulBroken a hundred times and still unbent.
The idioms used in Korea mix phrases from the Chinese classics with ones coined in Korea. Where an expression is not used in China, the entry says so.