老實說,世界在運轉,有用的人萬里挑一。

To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

Source: Tatoeba

Sentence Composition

1 老實說 lǎoshíshuō honestly speaking; to be frank, ...
2 世界 shìjiè world

classifier:

3 zài
  1. to exist; to be alive
  2. (of sb or sth) to be (located) at
  3. (used before a verb to indicate an action in progress)
4 運轉 yùnzhuǎn
  1. to work
  2. to operate
  3. to revolve
  4. to turn around
5 有用 yǒuyòng useful
=6 de
  1. of; ~'s (possessive particle)
  2. (used after an attribute when it modifies a noun)
  3. (used at the end of a declarative sentence for emphasis)
  4. (used after a noun, verb or adjective to form a nominal expression, as in 皮革的 de "one made of leather" or 跑堂兒的 pǎotángrde "a waiter (literally, one who runs back and forth in a restaurant)" or 新的 xīnde "new one")
  5. also pr. or di in poetry and songs
=6 a taxi; a cab (abbr. for 的士 shì)
=6 really and truly
=6 (bound form) bull's-eye; target
7 rén person; people

classifiers: ,

=8 萬里 Wàn Wan Li (1916-2015), PRC politician
=8 萬里 Wàn Wanli township in New Taipei City 新北市 Xīnběishì, Taiwan
=8 萬里 wàn
  1. far away
  2. thousands of miles; 10,000 li
=9 tiāo
  1. to carry on a shoulder pole
  2. to choose
  3. to pick
  4. to nitpick
=9 tiǎo
  1. to raise
  2. to dig up
  3. to poke
  4. to prick
  5. to incite
  6. to stir up
=9 tāo only used in 挑達挑达 (tāotà, “walking back and forth; coming and going”)
10
  1. one
  2. single
  3. a (article)
  4. as soon as
  5. entire; whole; all; throughout
  6. "one" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 1)
  7. also pr. yāo for greater clarity when spelling out numbers digit by digit