a single seed can produce a great harvest; small beginnings can yield great results
A yojijukugo proverb emphasizing that even a tiny start can lead to enormous returns. Often used to encourage thrift, patience, or investment.
Believing in the saying 'a single seed can produce a great harvest,' I keep investing a little each month.
With the spirit of 'watch the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves,' small savings can make a big difference in the future.
Both emphasize accumulation, but 一粒万倍 focuses on the multiplicative return from a single small beginning, while 塵も積もれば山となる stresses that even trivial things add up to something large.
A yojijukugo of Chinese origin, literally 'one grain, ten thousand times.' The exact historical derivation is uncertain, but it is conventionally associated with the idea that a single grain of rice can multiply into a bountiful harvest.