Words worth understanding
Start with the thought in plain English. Then explore the imagery, a practical example, when to use it, and what the saying does not mean.
4,000 entries with editorial explanations. The wider collection also contains entries still awaiting an individual interpretation.
proverb · Traditional
Unknown things passing for miraculous contrasts a gap in understanding with an extraordinary explanation. The saying questions wonder treated as proof.
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The saying makes faith move mountains. It represents belief as capable of facing something that seems overwhelmingly difficult.
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Fear and hope as parents of God present belief through human emotions. The saying proposes a source for religious ideas rather than treating divinity as a literal child.
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First people made from sticks and later roaming as apes presents a creation-and-transformation narrative. The sentence describes an origin image rather than an ordinary maxim.
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Prepare the means to do a task instead of waiting passively for everything to arrive. The tools come first, while the materials are pictured as coming through providence.
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Fishing hours not deducted from life imagines a pleasurable activity outside ordinary mortality. The saying gives leisure a playful blessing.
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God’s love denied to those who have not suffered makes suffering a condition of divine favour. The saying expresses a severe religious judgment.
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The saying assigns healing to God while giving the physician the thanks. It separates an ultimate cause imagined through faith from the person visibly credited.
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The saying gives ironic attention to the rich while treating begging as a sufficient answer for the poor. A critical reading exposes the unequal concern rather than endorsing it.
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God never hurried and always present at the proper time expresses confidence in divine timing. The saying gives patience a religious assurance.
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Human worth is not measured by physical height. The saying uses a religious image to reject an outward yardstick, but it should not replace that yardstick with another demand that people demonstrate their value through size, ability, status or impressive performance.
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The saying connects divine help with human action. It can encourage participation in a hoped-for result, but it should not make faith a guarantee of success or imply that people who need assistance have failed to use their hands well enough.
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God saving money and the devil spending it gives thrift and expenditure opposing moral figures. The saying expresses a severe value judgment about resources.
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The saying expresses trust that divine care makes allowance for vulnerability. The shorn sheep and moderated wind picture compassion toward exposed need.
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Money can open many worldly doors, but the saying denies it the same power over Heaven. It contrasts material influence with spiritual worth, rather than describing a purchase that guarantees access everywhere.
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Greatness and beauty extending beyond the gods give human or earthly value a place alongside a divine ideal. The saying rejects exclusive possession of admired qualities.
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A person who places ultimate value in a relationship with God can feel that ordinary losses do not take away what matters most.
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The saying directs someone unable to pay toward prayer. It substitutes a religious response for unavailable material means.
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The speaker trusts that those who must be fed will also find provision. Mouths and meat put need and its hoped-for answer beside each other.
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A very demanding ambition can require sustained attention. The wish to become Pope gives the saying an extreme example of a goal absorbing a person’s effort.
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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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Someone who does not know forgiven by God expresses a religious view of ignorance and mercy. The saying gives understanding a role in how responsibility is imagined.
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Someone eating alone called Satan’s brother uses a religious insult to elevate shared meals over solitude. The saying condemns nonsharing through a hostile figure.
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Heaven enduring while people die contrasts a lasting spiritual or cosmic setting with human mortality. The saying expresses a perspective on transience.
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