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Personalize your custom “Limits” project by clicking the button next to your favorite “Limits” title below...
1. Devotion / Dedication / Attentive / Focused
2. Infinity / Infinite / Unlimited / Unbounded
3. No Limits
4. The Sea of Knowledge Has No Limits
5. With all the strength of your heart
專心 makes a word that means “paying attention with your heart.”
It's often translated as “dedication,” as in “be absorbed in” or “concentrate one's efforts.” It's also used to mean “with the single mind,” “whole-heartedly,” “paying attention,” “undivided attention,” “concentration (-ed),” “engrossed,” “devotionally (listening/watching),” and/or “attentive.”
The first character means “for a particular person, occasion, or purpose,” “focused on one single thing,” “concentrated,” and sometimes, “special.”
The second character means “heart” or “mind” by itself.
My favorite translation, which comes from the Oxford Advanced Chinese/English Dictionary, is, “wholehearted devotion.”
If it seems like the meaning of this word is quite open, you are correct. The context in which the word is used matters a lot. It can mean different things depending on how you use it. This makes it kind of nice as you can decide what this means to you (within some limits). This is always positive in meaning, so even if a Chinese person reads it differently than you, it will still have a good meaning.
In Japanese, they tend to use a variation of the second character which has one less stroke. If you want your calligraphy written this Japanese form, please click on the Kanji shown to the right instead of the button above. Note: Japanese and Chinese people will recognize either form.
Japanese = Infinity / Chinese = No limits
無限 is the Chinese and Japanese word meaning infinity, unlimited or unbounded.
無限 literally translates as “without limits” or “without [being] bound.”
The first character means “never” or “not,” like the prefix “un-.”
The second means “limited,” “restricted,” or “bound.”
Please note that the Japanese definition leans more toward “infinity” and the Chinese is more about being “boundless” or “without limits.”
In Korean, this means infinity, infinitude, or boundlessness. But in Korean, this term has many interpretations or contexts, so your intended meaning might be vague or ambiguous.
學海無涯 is a Chinese proverb that reads, “sea of learning, no horizon.”
Colloquially, it means there are no limits to what one still has left to learn.
This would be the Chinese equivalent to the quote from Hippocrates, “ars longa, vita brevis,” meaning “it takes a long time to acquire and perfect one's expertise.”
See Also: Learning is Eternal
思い切り can be translated as “with all one's strength,” “with all one's heart,” “to the limits of your heart,” or “to the end of your heart/emotions.”
The character breakdown:
思い (omoi) thought; mind; heart; feelings; emotion; sentiment; love; affection; desire; wish; hope; expectation; imagination; experience
切り (kiri) bounds; limits.
Note: Because this selection contains some special Japanese Hiragana characters, it should be written by a Japanese calligrapher.
寧靜致遠 is an ancient Chinese idiom that means “tranquility yields transcendence.”
This suggests pursuing a quiet life of profound study.
The first two characters mean tranquility. The last two characters mean “go far,” which suggests achieving much in your life or expanding beyond normal limits. The direct translation would read something like, “[With] tranquility [in your life, you'll] go far.”
Compare this to the English idiom: Still waters run deep.
漫瀾 is the Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and old Korean Hanja for “Having no boundaries or limitations.”
This literally talks of the vastness of an ocean or river.
Character breakdown:
漫 = free; unrestrained; to inundate; overflowing; boundless.
澜 = swelling water; large wave.
無盡 is the Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and old Korean Hanja for endless; inexhaustible; without limits; infinite.
In the Buddhist context, this can refer to the infinitude of living beings, of worlds, of space, of the dharmadhātu, of nirvāṇa, etc.
These search terms might be related to Limits:
No Limits
The Sea of Knowledge Has No Limits
The following table may be helpful for those studying Chinese or Japanese...
Title | Characters | Romaji (Romanized Japanese) | Various forms of Romanized Chinese | |
Devotion Dedication Attentive Focused | 專心 / 専心 / 耑心 专心 | sen shin / senshin | zhuān xīn zhuan1 xin1 zhuan xin zhuanxin | chuan hsin chuanhsin |
Infinity Infinite Unlimited Unbounded | 無限 无限 | mu gen / mugen | wú xiàn / wu2 xian4 / wu xian / wuxian | wu hsien / wuhsien |
No Limits | 何でもあり | nan de mo a ri nandemoari | ||
The Sea of Knowledge Has No Limits | 學海無涯 学海无涯 | xué hǎi wú yá xue2 hai3 wu2 ya2 xue hai wu ya xuehaiwuya | hsüeh hai wu ya hsüehhaiwuya |
|
With all the strength of your heart | 思い切り | omoi kiri / omoikiri | ||
Tranquility Yields Transcendence | 寧靜致遠 宁静致远 | níng jìng zhì yuǎn ning2 jing4 zhi4 yuan3 ning jing zhi yuan ningjingzhiyuan | ning ching chih yüan ningchingchihyüan |
|
No Limitations | 漫瀾 漫澜 | man ran / manran | màn lán / man4 lan2 / man lan / manlan | |
Endless Without Limit | 無盡 无尽 | mu jin / mujin | wú jìn / wu2 jin4 / wu jin / wujin | wu chin / wuchin |
In some entries above you will see that characters have different versions above and below a line. In these cases, the characters above the line are Traditional Chinese, while the ones below are Simplified Chinese. |
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All of our calligraphy wall scrolls are handmade.
When the calligrapher finishes creating your artwork, it is taken to my art mounting workshop in Beijing where a wall scroll is made by hand from a combination of silk, rice paper, and wood.
After we create your wall scroll, it takes at least two weeks for air mail delivery from Beijing to you.
Allow a few weeks for delivery. Rush service speeds it up by a week or two for $10!
When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.
The wall scroll that Sandy is holding in this picture is a "large size"
single-character wall scroll.
We also offer custom wall scrolls in small, medium, and an even-larger jumbo size.
Professional calligraphers are getting to be hard to find these days.
Instead of drawing characters by hand, the new generation in China merely type roman letters into their computer keyboards and pick the character that they want from a list that pops up.
There is some fear that true Chinese calligraphy may become a lost art in the coming years. Many art institutes in China are now promoting calligraphy programs in hopes of keeping this unique form
of art alive.
Even with the teachings of a top-ranked calligrapher in China, my calligraphy will never be good enough to sell. I will leave that to the experts.
The same calligrapher who gave me those lessons also attracted a crowd of thousands and a TV crew as he created characters over 6-feet high. He happens to be ranked as one of the top 100 calligraphers in all of China. He is also one of very few that would actually attempt such a feat.
Check out my lists of Japanese Kanji Calligraphy Wall Scrolls and Old Korean Hanja Calligraphy Wall Scrolls.
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