Study Hard and Make Progress Every Day

[GoodTaste]

I searched 1978 Beijing photos and found this picture:

Do you see the slogan on the wall - "Study Hard and Make Progress Every Day"? That's a good translation from one of Mao's phrases. Chinese colloge/university students in those days had often translated the original Mao's phrase directly into "Good Good Study, Up Up Every Day", which I believe no native English speakers have a clue what it talks about.

The question of this thread is whether there are better expressions in English that express the same meaning of "Study Hard and Make Progress Every Day".

 

[Tarheel]

It's an excellent phrase, and the meaning is clear. It would be hard to say it better. It is certainly a worthy goal (making progress every day). I don't know if you could say it any better than that.

 

[Tdol]

It's much better than the study up version, which is basically gibberish.

 

[probus]

I have a brilliant essay by Aubrey Menon in which he points out that:

1) the idea of getting better every day, also known as progress, is a fairly recent one,

2) not everyone in the world gets better every day, and

3) there are a significant number of people who do not agree that progress is a good thing. Many such people live in India and hold firmly to the idea that the status quo is fine and should not be altered.

 

[GoesStation]

Lower-class English people are often presented in dramas as holding a similar belief until roughly the second half of the twentieth century. It's often expressed with admonitions like don't get above your station or your betters.

 

[Tarheel]

Thank goodness there have always been those who are forward looking.

 

[Tdol]

If not we should fall back on "Good Good Study, Up Up Every Day". ;-)

 

[Phaedrus]

The question of this thread is whether there are better expressions in English that express the same meaning of "Study Hard and Make Progress Every Day".

When I was an undergraduate in college, my grandfather used to tell me, "Keep your nose to the grindstone," an expression similar in meaning.

The expression means "work hard and continuously"; however, the sharpening influence of the figurative grindstone figuratively implies progress.