Justice.

Meaning: A conflict that leaves no one unharmed has a terrible cost even if someone claims victory. The saying directs attention to what everyone loses when a contest becomes destructive.

Meaning: When every available option has a drawback, the saying favours the one involving less harm. The qualification matters: first examine whether the choices are genuinely limited, and do not treat a lesser harm as harmless or automatically justified.

Meaning: Harm can result from carelessness as well as deliberate cruelty. Good intentions do not remove the need to consider what an action may do to others.

Meaning: A damaged reputation may outlast the original injury or event. The saying contrasts recovery with the persistence of a bad name, while its absolute wording should not deny repair, presume blame or suggest that a reputation can never change.

Meaning: When all available options have drawbacks, compare them and choose the one with less harm. The saying addresses a constrained choice, without proving that only two options exist or that an avoidable wrong becomes justified.

Meaning: A mutually agreed exchange can benefit both sides without one person simply taking from the other. The saying presents trading as reciprocal, but agreement and fair terms need examination rather than being assumed from the word exchange.

Meaning: The rhyme assigns faults to appearance, colour and stature. It is a sequence of stereotypes rather than evidence that visible characteristics determine character.

Meaning: Someone who loses standing may face further unkind treatment while they are vulnerable. The image warns about people adding to another’s difficulty, rather than predicting everyone’s behaviour or implying that the person who fell deserves what follows.

Meaning: When someone or something loses its position, others may rush to take advantage. The fallen tree and ready hatchets picture opportunism, rather than establishing that every response to a failure is selfish.

Meaning: Attention and assistance may flow towards those already well provided for while someone in greater need is neglected. The cooking image criticises that imbalance, without proving that every visible advantage is undeserved or that need can be judged from appearance alone.

Meaning: A series of small removals can amount to a substantial loss. Plucking the goose one feather at a time pictures gradual depletion that may be missed when each change is considered separately.

Meaning: Possessiveness and a demand for dominance can make equal companionship difficult. Love and lordship are pictured as unwilling to share their place with others.

Meaning: The saying states that a fifer does not pay a fiddler. A qualified reading contrasts providing music oneself with paying another musician to provide it.

Meaning: People are attended to in the order they arrive or apply. This describes one allocation rule, whose fairness depends on access, urgency and the purpose of the service.

Meaning: Do not apply unequal standards to people in comparable situations without a fair reason. Notice when similar contributions or mistakes are being treated very differently.

Meaning: Disorder can create an opportunity for someone to gain an advantage. The saying may describe exploiting confusion, so the opportunity needs an ethical judgement rather than being treated as automatically good advice.

Meaning: Do not expect to obtain something from a source that cannot supply it. Trying to skin a stone makes an impossible demand visible, while inviting a check that the limitation is real rather than merely assumed.

Meaning: When many people take from the same limited resource, their combined demands can exhaust it. Consider the total burden, not only how small each individual request appears.

Meaning: Holding back from demanding something is not necessarily giving up the claim. Patience or temporary restraint should not automatically be read as forgiveness or final agreement.

Meaning: A dishonest or harmful way of working can taint what it produces. Foul hands supply a metaphor for misconduct, rather than proving that one mistake permanently corrupts every action a person takes.

Meaning: Someone with a direct interest in an outcome may be unsuitable to judge it impartially. Identify conflicts of interest before entrusting a decision to an apparently knowledgeable participant.

Meaning: A wish to possess or rule can interfere with friendship. The saying invites scrutiny of exclusivity and power in relationships rather than treating them as unavoidable.

Meaning: Material resources can give someone more confidence or influence in a conversation. The full-purse image notices that advantage, but it should not make wealth a measure of truth, wisdom or entitlement to speak over people with fewer resources.

Meaning: Acquiring and keeping resources is presented as a route to greater prosperity. The promised transformation of lead into gold gives that advice an extravagant image.