The collection / 27 fragments
Choosing proportion and balance in what is sought, supplied or repeated. These editorial selections question excess without prescribing one universal amount or confusing reasonable restraint with deprivation. 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.
Meaning: Wanting something too intensely can make it harder to judge what pursuing it requires. The warning concerns desire becoming disproportionate, without condemning ordinary ambition or deciding that a particular goal is not worth seeking.
Meaning: Trying to take or control everything can put what you already have at risk. Consider whether an excessive demand is making a workable arrangement less secure.
Meaning: An excessive amount of one thing can crowd out what else is needed or reduce its usefulness. The saying warns against imbalance, while its absolute ending should not turn every large quantity into something worthless.
Meaning: Something desirable can seem unpleasant when a person has already had too much. The full blackbird’s response to cherries illustrates how satisfaction changes appetite.
Meaning: The saying makes greed burst a bag. It warns that trying to obtain too much can undermine what is already held.
Meaning: A small pack fitting a small pedlar pictures resources proportionate to an undertaking. A workable scale may matter more than an impressive load.
Meaning: The paradox that enough requires too much questions how a margin is judged. It may picture wanting surplus or preparing beyond an exact minimum.
Meaning: Enough should be assessed against an actual need. A modest amount can be sufficient, even when comparison with larger amounts makes it look inadequate.
Meaning: A limited resource sets limits on what can reasonably be made from it. Adjust the scope to what is available or obtain more resources before promising a larger result.
Meaning: A small undertaking can produce valuable results. Assess the quality and usefulness of its output rather than assuming that a larger scale is always better.
Meaning: A small gain may not justify a larger expense. Compare the value of what you are trying to recover with the resources spent in the search.
Meaning: Someone who refuses to use or share anything can experience possessions as perpetual scarcity. The saying criticises miserliness rather than people who lack resources.
Meaning: A satisfying moment can be a good stopping point. Continuing solely to extend a success may expose the gain or enjoyment to unnecessary loss.
Meaning: A cure can cause more harm than the small problem it addresses. Correct gently and proportionately rather than pursuing a spotless result at someone’s expense.
Meaning: Take a sustainable benefit without destroying what supplies it. The contrast between shearing and flaying warns against extraction that becomes ruinous or cruel.
Meaning: Do not enlarge one difficulty into several through exaggeration or a poorly chosen response. Examine the actual problem before adding imagined dangers or unnecessary complications.
Meaning: An attractive price can encourage purchases whose combined cost exceeds their value to you. A bargain saves money only when the purchase itself is useful and affordable.
Meaning: What is held or carried can place demands on its container. The blade and sheath invite attention to the cost of sustaining something powerful or continually active.
Meaning: The comparison warns about unchecked appetite by portraying it as more destructive than open violence. It is rhetorical emphasis, not a reliable comparison of deaths or a dietary rule.
Meaning: A supply is depleted when people continually draw from it without replenishment. The bottom of the container makes a limit visible, inviting attention to how a shared resource is maintained.
Meaning: A stated intention to save conflicts with spending more than is earned. The one-to-three comparison exposes that mismatch, without making poverty or unavoidable expenses a failure of character.
Meaning: A joke can be better left at its successful moment than prolonged until it tires or hurts people. Knowing when to stop is part of considerate humour, not a rejection of playfulness.
Meaning: A fault does not automatically settle whether a useful relationship should end. The cat’s theft invites a proportionate judgement, while leaving serious harm and continuing boundaries firmly open to consideration.
Meaning: An income kept instead of spent appears to create wealth without mysterious alchemy. The comparison highlights retaining resources, without pretending that people can avoid necessary costs or that saving alone guarantees security.