The collection / 1,755 fragments
Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.
Meaning: When every available option has a drawback, the saying favours the one involving less harm. The qualification matters: first examine whether the choices are genuinely limited, and do not treat a lesser harm as harmless or automatically justified.
Meaning: An unhelpful practice can be picked up quickly through example or convenience. The saying encourages attention to what is being learned, without claiming that harmful habits are inevitable or that a person cannot change.
Meaning: Harm can result from carelessness as well as deliberate cruelty. Good intentions do not remove the need to consider what an action may do to others.
Meaning: A damaged reputation may outlast the original injury or event. The saying contrasts recovery with the persistence of a bad name, while its absolute wording should not deny repair, presume blame or suggest that a reputation can never change.
Meaning: Something obtained through wrongdoing may be used or lost just as carelessly. The saying links a bad beginning with an unhappy result, without proving that every dishonest gain receives a matching punishment.
Meaning: Poor foundations are unlikely to produce a good result. Grain and seed turn the connection between a starting point and its outcome into a growing image.
Meaning: When all available options have drawbacks, compare them and choose the one with less harm. The saying addresses a constrained choice, without proving that only two options exist or that an avoidable wrong becomes justified.
Meaning: What people see you do can teach more powerfully than what you tell them to do. Let your conduct support your instructions rather than expecting words alone to establish a useful habit.
Meaning: An inadequate explanation may seem preferable to offering none. The proverb values some response over silence, but a bad excuse can also mislead or weaken trust; it is not permission to invent a justification.
Meaning: The proverb contrasts resources already available with hoped-for resources when judging a commitment. It encourages realism about an expectation’s uncertainty, without defining a financial plan or assuming that every necessary expense can be limited to what someone currently holds.
Meaning: Learning through your own mistakes can be costly, yet people often take a lesson seriously only after experiencing its consequences. Consider whether you could learn earlier from advice or another person’s experience.
Meaning: The saying sharply criticises people who ignore guidance and learn only after a mistake affects them. Take relevant warnings seriously instead of requiring every lesson to arrive through your own setback.
Meaning: An extreme condition or approach may be difficult to sustain. Consider whether an intense position has a workable future, while avoiding the assumption that every extreme situation will soon end by itself.
Meaning: Retaining part of an ability or benefit can be preferable to losing it altogether. The comparison argues for a remaining good when a complete one is unavailable.
Meaning: Something unknown may not cause the distress that learning about it would bring. The saying comments on awareness and feeling, without making ignorance protective in every case or excusing the concealment of information someone needs.
Meaning: The saying allows touching an eye only with an elbow. Its difficult condition can function as an indirect instruction to leave the eye alone.
Meaning: An event may not produce immediate sadness while a person remains unaware of it. The saying links knowledge and feeling, without claiming that unseen harm disappears or that concealment is a proper way to prevent grief.
Meaning: A direct account may be more useful than many repeated second-hand reports. Check where information comes from instead of treating the number of people repeating it as independent evidence.
Meaning: The saying portrays a woman’s appearance as the source of her prospects or advantage. It describes an appearance-based judgement, not a fair measure of her abilities, agency or worth.
Meaning: A relevant, well-established fact can settle a question more effectively than much unsupported reasoning. The ship-load exaggerates the quantity of talk, without suggesting that facts need no interpretation or that one isolated observation proves everything.
Meaning: The saying encourages courage in seeking a hoped-for relationship, but frames a woman as a prize to win. A constructive reading values honest initiative while rejecting conquest: another person’s consent, interest and freedom to decline remain essential.
Meaning: Praise so weak or qualified that it seems reluctant can convey criticism. The saying notices the message around the compliment, without proving that every brief or reserved acknowledgement is intended to disparage.
Meaning: The rhyme assigns faults to appearance, colour and stature. It is a sequence of stereotypes rather than evidence that visible characteristics determine character.
Meaning: A steady, gentle approach can carry a task further than impatient effort. The saying values sustainable progress, without making slowness a virtue in itself or claiming that every situation calls for the same pace.