stand on the edge of a pool and idly long for fish(lín yuān xiàn yú)

stand on the edge of a pool and idly long for fish

Linyuanxianyu, a Chinese idiom, is pronounced L í NYU à nxi à NY ú, which means that if you want to get fish by the water, you'd better go home and make a net. It's no good for a thing to have only wishes but no measures. From Huainanzi shuolinxun.

The origin of Idioms

"Huainanzi shuolinxun" says, "if you admire fish near the river, it's better to go home and make a net." Biography of Dong Zhongshu in Han Dynasty: "Linyuan envies fish, it's better to retreat and form a net."

Idiom usage

This is a few years, it can be effective, ten years can be successful, why not try it, but just sigh. Zhu Zhiyu's sixty one answers to the questions of xiaozhaisheng in Ming Dynasty

Chinese PinYin : lín yuān xiàn yú