玩物丧志

Traditional (Taiwan): 玩物喪志

wánwùsàngzhì ㄨㄢˊ ㄨˋ ㄙㄤˋ ㄓˋ

- lit. trifling destroys the will (idiom) infatuation with fine details prevents one making progress
- excessive attention to trivia saps the will

Character by character

玩(wán)play
物(wù)thing
丧(sàng)lose sth abstract but important
志(zhì)ambition

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Sources

CC-CEDICT, CC BY-SA 4.0
pinyinjs, Apache-2.0