氷は水より出でて水よりも寒し

Japanese
Kanji in this term
氷 水 出 水 寒
こおり
Grade: 3		 みず
Grade: 1		 い
Grade: 1		 みず
Grade: 1		 さむ
Grade: 3
kun’yomi

Etymology

From the 荀子 (Junji, “Xunzi”):

君子曰：學不可以已。青、取之於藍，而青於藍；冰、水為之，而寒於水。 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
君子曰：学不可以已。青、取之于蓝，而青于蓝；冰、水为之，而寒于水。 [Classical Chinese, simp.]
From: Xunzi, c. 3rd century BCE
Jūnzǐ yuē: xué bùkě yǐ yǐ. Qīng, qǔ zhī yú lán, ér qīng yú lán; bīng, shuǐ wèi zhī, ér hán yú shuǐ. [Pinyin]
The gentleman said: Learning must never cease. Blue is obtained from the indigo plant but is bluer than the plant itself; ice is made from water but is colder than water itself.

Literally “ice coming from water is colder than water”.[1]

This proverb is not the exact kanbun kundoku form of the above Chinese text; the back-formation of this form in pseudo-kanbun would be 冰出於水，而寒於水 (compare 青出於藍，而青於藍).

Proverb

氷(こおり)は水(みず)より出(い)でて水(みず)よりも寒(さむ)し • (kōri wa mizu yori idete mizu yori mo samushi) 

  1. the student has surpassed his or her teacher

See also

References
  1. Daniel Crump Buchanan, editor (1965), Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, reprint, revised edition, University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, page 8
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