proverb · Words worth keeping
Fair and softly as lawyers go to heaven.
Fair and softly as lawyers go to heaven.
Historical period not yet established
Understand the thought
Meaning in plain English
The saying uses lawyers going to heaven as an image for proceeding gently or slowly. Its comparison has a possible satirical edge, while the exact tone is not supplied.
What the words are saying
Fair and softly gives the pace or manner the leading role. A qualified reading may notice that the heavenly destination adds moral humour to a familiar instruction. It does not establish a profession’s spiritual fate or a documented story behind the phrase. The useful application concerns measured movement without adopting its occupational disparagement.
Everyday example
Someone handles a delicate disagreement carefully rather than rushing to impose an answer.
When to use it
Use it as a qualified expression of measured progress.
What it does not mean
The satire’s precise setting is unknown, and no spiritual judgment about lawyers is verified.
Agent-assisted editorial interpretation. This explains the words; it does not by itself verify their author or earliest origin.
Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Traditional
Attribution: traditional - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Historical period not yet established
No sufficiently supported historical placement has been established. Import and download dates are not treated as composition dates. - Recorded source
- A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases
Entry 932 · Lawyers
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
- Culture
- English