Friendship.

Meaning: A helpful act is a reason to respond with kindness or assistance when you can. Mutual generosity can strengthen a relationship without requiring an exact repayment for every favour.

Meaning: Someone who arrives without an invitation should not assume that everything has been prepared for them. Bringing a stool pictures taking responsibility for the practical consequences of joining unexpectedly, rather than demanding extra hospitality.

Meaning: A guest is encouraged to acknowledge the host’s welcome. Drinking to the host pictures a small act of reciprocal courtesy rather than a requirement to consume alcohol.

Meaning: People can care for one another while disagreeing in thought or judgement. A difference of opinion need not erase shared affection, respect or purpose.

Meaning: Clear boundaries can help a friendship remain healthy. Some separation in space, time or responsibilities may prevent small intrusions from becoming repeated resentment.

Meaning: The saying declares a household unhappy when the hen is louder than the cock. Its animal image can express a gendered objection to a woman having greater authority.

Meaning: Frightening someone is a poor way to seek their willing approach. The hind image criticises pressure that drives the hoped-for connection away, while a constructive reading rejects the idea of catching a person and keeps their choice and boundaries central.

Meaning: Generous hospitality is pictured as a home without barriers to welcome. The absence of doors exaggerates the openness of a considerate host.

Meaning: People have different preferences, dispositions and ways of responding. The saying encourages allowance for that variety, without making every preference a right to ignore others or treating someone’s current habits as unchangeable.

Meaning: Careful management can leave resources for personal needs, assistance and friendship. The three pennies picture several purposes served by stewardship.

Meaning: The bird-and-nest image criticises damaging a place or relationship that supports you. A useful reading values shared care, while reporting wrongdoing or questioning an institution must not be dismissed as disloyalty simply because someone belongs to it.

Meaning: Do not make another person’s difficulties or impairments the object of a joke. The saying asks for consideration, without requiring every serious matter to be humourless or assuming what the person themselves finds acceptable.

Meaning: The saying suggests that excessive pride can make someone overlook the help they receive. Recognising your own effort need not prevent acknowledging other people’s contributions.

Meaning: The saying imagines a suitable partner for everyone. It can offer hope about companionship, but its promise is not guaranteed, and its paired male-and-female labels should not prescribe identity, require a relationship or override anyone’s freely chosen interest.

Meaning: Passing up a joke can be wiser than hurting a friend for a moment’s amusement. Consider the person affected before deciding that a clever remark must be said.

Meaning: Something offered as amusing or pleasing can leave an unpleasant result. The sweetmeat and sour-sauce contrast warns that a joke’s enjoyable surface may differ from its effect on the people involved.

Meaning: The saying urges loyalty to family through both easy and difficult circumstances. A careful reading supports dependable care without making kinship a reason to conceal wrongdoing, accept harm or deny someone’s boundaries.

Meaning: Acts of kindness can encourage further kindness, like planted grain producing more grain. A considerate action may spread through example or reciprocity beyond its immediate benefit.

Meaning: Having many relatives does not necessarily mean having many dependable friends. Support and closeness depend on the relationship people build, rather than on a family connection alone.

Meaning: Attention directed toward one person may be intended to please someone connected with them. The child and nurse picture indirect favour, without proving that every friendly gesture has a hidden or dishonest motive.

Meaning: Even someone well suited to a task may welcome additional help in difficult conditions. The owl and lantern picture assistance for an apparently capable performer, without assuming a particular aid is useful or wanted in every situation.

Meaning: The saying sets professional skill in law beside being a bad neighbour. It warns that an ability admired in one setting may be used unhelpfully in another.

Meaning: The saying warns that refusing a loan may disappoint a friend. It is too absolute to be a rule: friendship should not require lending what you cannot reasonably or willingly provide.

Meaning: Extreme reluctance to part with something is pictured as refusing even a request that would harm an enemy. The knife makes the refusal comically absolute.