"Stones from other mountains can be used to polish jade" means: The rocks from other mountains are hard and can be used to polish jade. It is a metaphor for the talents of other countries who can serve their own country, and it is also a metaphor for people or opinions that can help you correct your shortcomings.
Source: "The Book of Songs·Xiaoya·Crane"
Idiom structure: compound sentence idioms, eight-character idioms
Extended information:
< p>The philosophical idiom "stones from other mountains can be used to attack jade" originally came from "He Ming". However, the whole poem is not intended to explain philosophy, but to praise the beauty of gardens and ponds.From the perspective of artistic development, it seems to be a logical evolution from observing and praising natural landscapes to man-made landscapes. No matter how beautiful the natural landscape is, it is difficult to own it. It is good to build the official residence to a place with beautiful scenery, but it will cause a lot of inconvenience to work and life. It is almost impossible to move the natural landscape as you wish.
Perhaps it is to reproduce the beauty of the natural scenery around the residence, perhaps to possess the beauty of the natural landscape, perhaps to show wealth and generosity, or perhaps a combination of several motives, so there is imitation of nature. Landscape man-made gardens.