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
A Christian forgiving and an idiot forgetting contrasts religiously framed mercy with erased memory through an insult. The saying separates two responses to a wrong.
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The saying calls a good example the best sermon. It favours demonstrating a value through conduct over explaining it only in speech.
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Playing cards placed in the devil’s prayer book gives a pastime a severe moral or religious condemnation. The saying associates cards with an imagined harmful influence.
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The saying calls a praying drunkard ugly. It places a disparaging judgment on a combination of prayer and drunkenness.
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Earthly possessions lose their comparative importance in the imagined final judgment. Money and a small amount of hay are placed on the same level.
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Visible religious participation does not by itself establish admirable conduct. The saying asks people to distinguish an outward sign of devotion from the way someone actually treats others.
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Earthly actions to be accounted for while kneeling in heaven express a religious view of eventual judgment. The saying connects conduct with an imagined transcendent responsibility.
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The saying makes an idle man the devil’s playfellow. It gives inactivity a threatening moral companion.
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The phrase praises patience by comparing it with Job. The biblical association supplies an image of endurance through suffering rather than a measured degree of calmness.
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The phrase uses Job as an image of extreme poverty or loss of possessions. Its comparison draws on the biblical account of a prosperous man suffering severe losses.
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Seeking food or generosity is pictured as especially difficult when others are fasting. The saying puts a request beside a setting in which the expected resource is restricted.
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A hopeful or generous expectation can shape how someone approaches a situation. The proverb links belief with a favourable result, but its useful reading treats that link as encouragement rather than a guarantee that thoughts control events.
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Religious belief should guide conduct rather than be used to hide it. The two uses of a cloak contrast a genuine purpose with a convenient disguise.
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Use resources thoughtfully while trusting in divine provision. The saying combines practical care with religious confidence rather than establishing a promised financial return.
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Cats catching mice without seeking God’s approval question an elevated motive being assigned to an ordinary action. The saying contrasts conduct with an asserted religious purpose.
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The saying places cleanliness next to godliness. It gives being clean a moral or religious association.
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The saying compares grain cleared by wind with a soul improved through correction. It makes separation of unwanted material an image of moral change.
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The saying pictures crosses as ladders toward heaven. Burdens are made into a religious image of possible progress rather than mere obstruction.
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The saying presents crosses as ladders leading to heaven. It gives burdens a hopeful direction within a religious interpretation of suffering.
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The saying has the devil find work for idle hands. It warns that unused time may be directed toward harmful conduct.
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A powerful lion without wings gives gratitude an image of a threat being less extensive than imagined. The saying shifts attention from what is frightening to an additional difficulty absent from the scene.
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Even the devil needing a friend extends the value of companionship to a figure usually treated as hostile. The saying exaggerates how widely a need for connection may reach.
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The saying combines individual self-interest with a shared appeal to God. It can express a tense situation in which people look after themselves, but it does not justify abandoning others or suggest that shared needs can be left entirely to divine care.
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Everything including prayer formed by habit gives repeated practice an expansive role. The saying connects even a spiritual activity with routines.
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