To extract one's bread from stone

Have you ever seen a loaf of bread made entirely of stone? Or witnessed someone breaking rocks to pull out a warm loaf of bread from inside? Of course not! Yet in our language there is a wonderful expression: "ekmeğini taştan çıkarmak". This idiom is used to describe people who, despite the most difficult conditions, never give up and work tirelessly to earn their livelihood, demonstrating great skill in securing their daily needs.

In idioms, words are often used metaphorically rather than in their literal sense. Here, the word "taş" represents hardship and difficult circumstances, while "ekmek" signifies income, food, and the necessities required to sustain life. Thus, a person who "pulls their bread from stone" is someone so capable and hardworking that they can endure the toughest tasks to provide for themselves. They never surrender in the face of adversity and manage to overcome every obstacle to stay afloat.

We often see people around us who achieve success through their own efforts and hard work. To describe their strong will and skill, we say: "He knows his trade, he never goes hungry, he knows how to pull his bread from stone." Or when someone takes on a difficult task and succeeds, we might say: "He did not delay joining the ranks of those who pull their bread from stone."

^{Representative Image (Generated by Artificial Intelligence)}

Our renowned Turkish writer Sait Faik Abasıyanık beautifully portrays the lives of ordinary people and children in his works. In one of his writings, he said of determined and hardworking children who face hardship: "I see that these children work as if they were dying to pull their bread from stone."