- English translation
A meager yield won through hard labor will not relieve need.
- Literal wording
What is picked out from among the stones cannot provide for the poor.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying warns that an undertaking may demand exhausting effort while producing too little to meet a serious need. It does not say that all difficult work is futile; rather, the return may be too small to matter.
It can apply when someone labors over scarce, inconvenient, or poorly placed resources and the expected gain remains trivial. The focus is on the mismatch between the work required and the benefit obtained.
- When it is used
Use it to comment on a task, scheme, or source of income whose rewards are plainly too small for the effort involved, especially when the need being addressed is substantial.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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