一暴十寒 — “To work or study with intermittent diligence, lacking perseverance”

During the Warring States period, Mencius, a renowned debater, was dissatisfied with King Qi's indecisiveness and his susceptibility to flattery. Mencius told the King, "Even if a plant has strong vitality, if you expose it to the sun for one day and then keep it in the cold for ten days, how can it possibly survive?" He then applied this analogy to the King's wavering commitment to good deeds, noting that as soon as he left, the sycophants would mislead the King again.

To further illustrate his point, Mencius used another vivid metaphor about chess. He said, "Playing chess may seem like a trivial matter, but if you don't concentrate, you won't learn it well or win." He recounted how Yi Qiu, the best chess player in the country, taught two apprentices. One focused intently on Yi Qiu's instructions, while the other was constantly distracted, imagining a large swan flying by and preparing to shoot it.

Despite being taught by the same master and starting at the same time, the latter's progress was significantly inferior. Mencius concluded that it wasn't a difference in intelligence, but in their level of concentration. This story emphasizes that to learn something or succeed in a task, one must be dedicated and make sustained effort. If one works for a day and then neglects it for ten, how can anything be accomplished?

Later generations condensed Mencius's words, "一日暴之，十日寒之" into the idiom "一暴十寒" to describe a lack of perseverance in study or work, characterized by inconsistent effort.