proverb · Traditional
Cats dream of mice.
Cats dreaming of mice imagines an inner preoccupation mirroring an expected interest. The saying connects attention with what one wants or pursues.
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739 matching explanations
proverb · Traditional
Cheap things are not good, good things are not cheap.
Cheap things denied goodness and good things denied cheapness equate price with quality. The saying warns against an appealing low cost.
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Cheese it is a peevish elf, It digests all things but itself.
The rhyme personifies cheese as a troublesome elf that digests everything except itself. Its comic contradiction presents the food as having a power it does not extend to its own substance.
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Children and chickens must be always picking.
The saying pictures children and chickens continually picking at food. It groups two images of repeated small feeding into a broad claim of need.
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Children and fools speak the truth.
The saying suggests that people who speak without calculated restraint may reveal what others conceal. It does not make children or people dismissed as fools automatically reliable witnesses.
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Chimney smoke descends, our nice weather ends.
The rhyme takes descending chimney smoke as a sign that pleasant weather is ending. It connects the smoke’s movement with a coming change.
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Choose your wife on Saturday, and not on a Sunday.
The saying recommends choosing a wife on Saturday rather than Sunday. A qualified reading favours seeing ordinary life instead of judging someone only in a special setting.
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Clear moon, frost soon.
The rhyme connects a clear view of the moon with frost soon. It makes a visible night sky a sign of expected cold.
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Cold hands, warm heart.
The saying contrasts cold hands with a warm heart. It imagines outward coldness alongside inward kindness rather than making appearance and character identical.
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Cold of complexion, good of condition.
The saying pairs a cold complexion with good condition. It gives a favourable judgment to one described quality without explaining the criterion or setting.
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Comparison is not proof.
Comparison distinguished from proof separates a suggestive resemblance from sufficient evidence. The saying questions a conclusion established only by analogy.
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Counsel is no command.
Counsel distinguished from command separates a suggestion from authority to require compliance. The saying protects judgment in receiving advice.
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Courts have no almanacks.
The saying denies courts an almanac. As a qualified analogy, it can suggest that expectations about ordinary timing do not settle what happens in a courtly or legal setting.
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Critics are like brushers of other men's clothes.
Criticism can help refine work that someone else has made. The clothes-brushing comparison gives the critic a supporting role, without assuming every criticism improves the work or that commenting is equivalent to creating it.
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Curiosity killed the cat; Satisfaction brought it back.
The saying first makes curiosity fatal to a cat, then makes satisfaction bring it back. Its second half answers the warning with a playful reversal.
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Day and night cannot dwell together.
Day and night unable to dwell together picture a contrast between conditions that do not occupy the same role. The saying presents an incompatibility image.
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Daylight will peep through a small hole.
A small opening can let understanding or possibility emerge. The daylight image values a limited beginning, without promising that one clue reveals the whole situation or that every difficulty will quickly disappear.
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Democracy is the worst form of despotism. –Aristotle
Democracy described as the worst despotism presents an extreme criticism of a political form. The supplied wording attributes the statement to Aristotle.
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Demonstrate staying powerful.
The instruction asks for a demonstration of staying powerful. It values maintained capacity rather than merely claiming strength once.
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Desperate diseases must have desperate remedies.
The saying pairs desperate diseases with desperate remedies. As a wider metaphor, an extreme problem is imagined to call for an exceptional response.
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Disregard what it seems absurd and you might fail to understand.
Dismissing apparent absurdity warned to obstruct understanding asks a reader to examine before rejecting. The saying gives unfamiliar or puzzling ideas a chance to be considered.
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Distance lends enhancement to the view.
The saying makes distance improve the view. It suggests that something remote may appear more attractive when details are less visible.
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Distance tests a horse’s strength; time reveals a marls character.
Distance testing a horse is paired with time revealing character. The comparison asks for evidence over an extended course rather than an instant impression.
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Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.
The saying asks adults not to limit children’s learning to what they themselves learned. Different generations may face different knowledge and circumstances.
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