01Undated
Little presents maintain friendship.
↗Meaning: A modest gift can help sustain a friendship by expressing attention. The value lies in considerate remembrance, rather than the price of the present or an obligation to exchange things.
The collection / 30 fragments
Kindness.
Helping with consideration for another person’s dignity and your own responsibilities. These editorial selections explore giving, reciprocity and how help is offered. Connections follow agent-reviewed meanings, rather than source word matching. Reviewed editorial meanings may also connect entries to this topic; those assignments are labelled separately from word matching.
02Undated
Jest so that it may not turn to earnest.
↗Meaning: Playful words can turn into a serious conflict or injury. Keep humour attentive to its effects, especially when the person targeted does not share the amusement or asks for it to stop.
03Undated
Whither goest thou, misfortune? To where there is more.
↗Meaning: Misfortune is imagined travelling toward a place already burdened by it. The question and reply express the feeling of troubles accumulating, without predicting more harm or blaming those already facing difficulty.
04Undated
The lean dog is all fleas.
↗Meaning: A creature already in poor condition is pictured bearing another burden. The lean dog and fleas draw attention to compounded difficulty, without making thinness a character judgement or suffering an inevitable fate.
05Undated
Who has no bread to spare should not keep a dog.
↗Meaning: Taking responsibility for a dependent requires some provision for its needs. The dog and spare bread make care more than the wish to have a companion.
06Undated
An ass with her colt goes not straight to the mill.
↗Meaning: A dependent can change the route or pace of a task. The ass and her colt make an apparently indirect journey understandable in relation to another creature’s needs.