like an egg knocking itself against a stone

like an egg knocking itself against a stone

It's a Chinese idiom. Pinyin is y ǐ Lu ǎ NT ó ush í, which means to touch a stone with an egg. It is a metaphor for not estimating one's own strength and destroying oneself. From Xunzi Yibing.

Analysis of Idioms

It's not helpful, it's useless, it's self destructive

Antonym: effective

Idiom usage

It means to kill oneself

Examples

If you want to be the enemy of Li Shi with human power, for example, you can throw an egg into a stone and shake a tree with a Mayer. Liang Qichao's discussion on establishing constitution in Qing Dynasty

The origin of Idioms

"Xunzi Yibing" said: "by the Jie for Yao, as if the egg into the stone, to scratch the boiling point." In Mozi Guiyi, it is said that "those whose words are not my words are just like throwing eggs into the stone. If the eggs of the world are exhausted, the stone is still the same and cannot be destroyed."

Idiom story

Mozi, a famous thinker in the Warring States period, met a fortune teller on his way to the state of Qi. The fortune teller said that his face was not good enough to go. Mo Zhai didn't believe his theory at all. He said that fortune tellers are superstitious, and superstition can't defeat truth. To deny truth with superstition is like "hitting a stone with an egg", which does no harm to truth.