leave no stone unturned

But I left no stone unturned. I was ready to move heaven and earth to persuade my sister, and at last I did persuade her.

My comments:

If you leave no stone unturned, you do everything you can.

This idiom is derived from the Greek legend of someone who was looking for treasures left from a battle. And when he consulted an oracle, someone who could talk to gods and therefore knew such secrets, he was told to “leave no stone unturned.”

In other words, he was told the treasures were buried under the stones but not exactly where. And so he had to put in the effort.

Hence, therefore, if you leave no stone unturned in achieving something, you do what you can, all that you can.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.