千里之行，始于足下
qiān lǐ zhī xíng, shǐ yú zú xià
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 千里之行，始於足下
Even the longest journey starts with the step you take from where you stand: every great undertaking begins with one small action. Quoted to urge people to stop hesitating and make a start.
Đường xa nghìn dặm cũng khởi đầu từ ngay dưới chân mình: việc lớn nào cũng bắt đầu từ một bước nhỏ. Thường dẫn ra để khuyên người ta bắt tay vào làm, đừng chần chừ.
Register: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 062 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ ; en.wiktionary Vietnamese entries via kaikki.org extract, snapshot 2026-07-31 (CC BY-SA 4.0): Hán-Việt reading 里 = lý, 行 = hành · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “thiên lý chi hành, thủy ư túc hạ” (thien-ly-chi-hanh-thuy-u-tuc-ha). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “千里之行，始于足下” mean?
Even the longest journey starts with the step you take from where you stand: every great undertaking begins with one small action. Quoted to urge people to stop hesitating and make a start. Literally: a thousand li of travel starts underfoot
Is “千里之行，始于足下” formal or informal?
千里之行，始于足下 is generally neutral.