Words worth understanding
Start with the thought in plain English. Then examine its imagery, practical application and limitations.
2,058 selected entries have editorial explanations. An explanation is not independent authentication of an attribution. Start with the individually source-checked classics ↗
proverb · Traditional
Neglecting a task can allow unwanted results to develop. The empty sowing and growing thistles contrast deliberate cultivation with what happens without it.
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Courtesy can be maintained without granting trust that conduct has not earned. The speaker returns fair words while keeping a boundary, without assuming that politeness proves either friendship or deception.
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Carelessly giving up resources can leave someone working hard to recover even a small amount. The hands discard what the feet must later pursue.
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Depending on another person’s arrangements can delay meeting one’s own needs. Waiting at someone else’s table pictures the limits of control in that dependence.
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Refusing useful guidance can leave a person facing the harder consequences of an avoidable mistake. The rudder steers, while the rock stops the vessel by collision.
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Attention to a small useful resource can be part of responsible care. Stooping for a pin makes modest effort visible, while the sweeping judgment about worth needs restraint.
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Uncertainty can prompt a believer to pray. Going to sea gives that religious response an image of circumstances beyond personal control.
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You cannot assume one choice will satisfy everyone’s preferences, including your own. Acknowledge conflicting needs and explain a reasonable decision rather than promising universal approval.
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An undertaking with known hazards may require accepting some exposure to them. Battle and wounds make that point forcefully, without requiring someone to take an unreasonable risk or treating caution as cowardice.
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Loud, forceful insistence may be used to cover a weak argument. The saying suggests asking what supports the claim beneath the bluster, without assuming that every emphatic speaker is concealing a lack of reason.
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The saying warns that drinking without thirst may leave someone thirsty when no drink remains. Its sequence contrasts present use with later need.
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If ordinary spending continually exceeds what comes in, having a purse does not solve the shortfall. Notice the mismatch rather than treating available storage or appearance as evidence of sufficient resources.
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A run of favourable outcomes can leave someone dazzled and less alert to limits. The saying questions judgment formed only under easy circumstances.
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The saying imagines birth fixing a death by hanging and ruling out death by drowning. It expresses fatalism through a stark contrast between two dangers.
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The saying warns that spending beyond available means can create severe difficulty. Its fatal imagery is an exaggeration to reject, not a fate to assign to anyone in debt.
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People or activity can be noticed in places that appear sheltered, and speech can travel beyond its intended audience. The eyes-and-ears image cautions against assuming surroundings make an action or conversation completely private.
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An unspoken trouble can be especially unsettling when it cannot be understood or addressed. The saying draws attention to the burden of what remains hidden.
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A position that offers advantages can also expose someone to serious consequences. Precipices around a high place warn against overlooking its dangerous edges, rather than treating prominence as proof of security.
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A conspicuous position can receive pressure from several directions. The hills exposed to wind picture the demands that visibility may attract, without proving that prominence must cause a fall or that every request deserves an immediate response.
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Satisfying a basic need may be simpler than satisfying elaborate preferences. Daintiness represents selectiveness or luxury beyond the need itself.
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The speaker acknowledges that they had not yet developed the judgement now associated with experience. The teeth image is a figurative admission of earlier inexperience, not a claim that age or physical development guarantees wisdom.
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An arrangement should serve the purpose for which it is maintained. The cats-and-mice image questions keeping more than is useful, without reducing people or living creatures to a measure of productivity.
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Something modest that you already have can be preferable to a grander prospect that remains uncertain. The cottage and kingdom contrast present possession with an anticipated benefit, without proving that every change or ambitious plan is unwise.
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Experience can help a person recognise an unconvincing lure. The speaker claims they have seen enough to avoid being taken in by this particular trick.
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