不积跬步，无以至千里；不积小流，无以成江海。
《荀子 | 劝学篇》
Without accumulating small steps, one cannot reach a thousand miles; without small streams accumulated, rivers and sea cannot be formed.
Whatever function the category noun serves in Chinese, in English it is generally useless. All it adds to the sentence is weight without substance.
But sometimes the third word called upon to do the verb-work is an adjective. Then it is the adjective that should be promoted to the rank of verb, while the idle words are dismissed from service.
However, no matter whether the verbs appear combined with nouns or standing independently, they do nothing but delay the advent of the main action.
The expressions in this group have been so weakened by constant repetition that they have lost their power of exhortation.
本文基于知识共享署名-非商业性使用-相同方式共享4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)契据，原著经周至道节选/编辑后发布于“道天地”，版权归属原作者。