One of the neighbors was called the Wise Old Man. When he saw what they were doing, he laughed boisterously. He went to advise the Foolish Old Man as follows: “Foolish Old Man, you are really stupid. In your physical condition and at your age, you can’t even shift a tuft of grass from these mountains, let alone shift the mountains themselves!” 

有个邻居叫智叟，看了这般情景笑得直不起腰来，上前劝说愚公：“愚公，你也太蠢了吧！就你这身子板儿，这把年纪，连山的一株草你都动不了，你还要搬山啊！”

These words didn’t make the Foolish Old Man angry, and he simply said, “You blind, stubborn old goat! You don’t even have the sense of a child. Just think for a moment: When I am dead, there will still be my sons. And even when they die, there will be my grandsons. And then there will be my great-grandsons. My descendants will continue, but these mountains won’t get any bigger. If we keep digging, generation after generation, what is to stop us flattening the mountains?” The Wise Old Man had no reply to this. 

愚公听了也不生气，歇口气说，“你呀，老顽固啦，顽固得还不如个小孩子呢。你想想看，即使我死了，我有儿子吧，儿子死了，还有孙子吧，孙子死了他还有儿子孙子吧，我们家子子孙孙没有尽头，这山又不会再变大了，一代一代挖下去，有啥移不平！”这番话让智叟竟无言以对。