小洞不补大洞吃苦

A small hole not plugged will make you suffer a big hole (idiom); a stitch in time saves nine

small / tiny / few / young

cave / hole / zero (unambiguous spoken form when spelling out numbers) / CL:個|个[ge4]

no; not so / (bound form) not; un-

to repair / to patch / to mend / to make up for / to fill (a vacancy) / to supplement

see 大夫[dai4 fu5]

big; large; great / older (than another person) / eldest (as in 大姐[da4 jie3]) / greatly; freely; fully / (dialect) father / (dialect) uncle (father's brother)

to eat / to consume / to eat at (a cafeteria etc) / to eradicate / to destroy / to absorb / to suffer / to stammer (Taiwan pr. for this sense is [ji2])

variant of 吃[chi1]

to bear hardships

bitter / hardship / pain / to suffer / to bring suffering to / painstakingly