The collection / 10,343 fragments
Explore passages mentioning learn, learning. Topic suggestions use transparent word matching, not scholarly classification. Reviewed editorial meanings may also connect entries to this topic; those assignments are labelled separately from word matching.
Meaning: Refusing useful guidance can leave a person facing the harder consequences of an avoidable mistake. The rudder steers, while the rock stops the vessel by collision.
Meaning: Experience with other people can soften rough habits or improve how someone deals with others. The stone passing from hand to hand suggests gradual change, without making conformity or mistreatment a necessary route to maturity.
Meaning: Build a basic skill before attempting its more demanding form. Learning the foundations can make an ambitious next step more reliable and easier to understand.
Meaning: Learning confined to books can leave a person poorly prepared for a practical situation. The saying’s insult should be replaced by a fair question about application.
Meaning: Continuing a search can make earlier effort useful when something worthwhile is found. The saying encourages persistence, without guaranteeing success or making it wrong to stop an unproductive search.
Meaning: An approach that works against the nature of a task can make it unnecessarily difficult. Shaving against the wool pictures resistance created by the chosen method.
Meaning: People can follow a lead without independently examining where it goes. The sheep image warns about imitation that substitutes for judgment.
Meaning: An unsuccessful effort can seem no better than doing nothing. The saying voices that discouragement, while inviting a closer look at what an attempt may still teach.
Meaning: An ability may become less ready to use when it receives little practice. The sharpened-edge image encourages suitable engagement, without making inactivity proof of laziness or claiming that every skill declines in the same way.
Meaning: A contribution suited to an early stage can help a task begin, while an oversized demand may overwhelm it. The sticks-and-fire contrast values fit and timing, without providing literal fire-building advice or making smallness inherently better.
Meaning: The saying recommends morning as a time for study. A careful reading treats it as one possible routine rather than a schedule that suits every learner.
Editorial context: This saying claims a repeated mistake deserves injury. That punitive viewpoint is not a justification for harm; repeated difficulty can reflect barriers or a need for support.
Meaning: Repeating a mistake can be a reason to learn from the earlier experience and change the approach. The saying’s claim that injury is deserved is punitive exaggeration, not a justification for hurting or blaming someone.
Meaning: A person under pressure may need to act while receiving enough support to begin. The supported swimmer pictures necessity together with limited assistance.
Meaning: Do not take on demands beyond your capacity without preparation or support. Depth and swimming picture the difference between manageable conditions and being overwhelmed.
Meaning: The saying criticises teaching everything. A useful reading asks whether instruction needs selection and sequence rather than an overwhelming amount at once.
Meaning: Experience over time can temper youthful confidence. The rider image presents youth as being trained, but needs limits on its assumption that age must subdue people.
Meaning: Someone may blame their equipment to avoid recognising a weakness in their own work. Examine skill and method as well as tools when a result disappoints.
Meaning: A useful practical skill can be a valuable resource in its own right. The ability to make, repair or provide something may support a person beyond the possessions they already hold.
Meaning: A task benefits from attention to the skills it requires. The saying favours relevant expertise but should not prevent someone learning beyond their present occupation.
Meaning: Knowing a little about many tasks may leave someone without deep expertise in any one. Match the breadth and depth of your skills to what the work actually needs.
Meaning: Encountering unfamiliar places and ways of life can broaden understanding. The saying values experience beyond familiar surroundings, without guaranteeing insight from distance or making travel the only route to learning.
Meaning: Knowing an outcome can make an earlier choice seem easier to judge. The saying highlights hindsight, while recognising that a first decision must often be made with incomplete information.
Meaning: A troubled beginning need not prevent a person from developing good judgment and conduct. The saying leaves room for growth beyond an early label.
Meaning: Poor instruction can leave someone with mistakes that need to be unlearned. The saying warns about teaching quality rather than making ignorance an ideal.