The collection / 9,806 fragments
Explore passages mentioning wealth, money, rich. 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: Carelessly giving up resources can leave someone working hard to recover even a small amount. The hands discard what the feet must later pursue.
Meaning: The proverb contrasts resources already available with hoped-for resources when judging a commitment. It encourages realism about an expectation’s uncertainty, without defining a financial plan or assuming that every necessary expense can be limited to what someone currently holds.
Meaning: The saying makes scarcity in an animal stall precede scarcity in the household hall. It pictures difficulty moving from provision for livestock to provision for people.
Meaning: The saying contrasts water-covered ground with snow-covered ground, assigning scarcity to the first and bread to the second. It gives two winter conditions opposite values.
Meaning: The saying places the beginning of famine in England at the horse’s feeding place. It gives a broad shortage a particular imagined starting point.
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: One person can bear the cost of a display while another enjoys the benefit. The contrast questions whether extravagant hospitality serves the person paying for it.
Meaning: A restriction can remain unwelcome even when it comes with valuable benefits. Material rewards do not automatically make a loss of freedom acceptable to the person experiencing it.
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: The saying pictures a fiddler’s reward as food, drink and money. It combines sustenance and payment in a compact account of what the performer receives.
Meaning: A later participant may benefit from work or expense already borne by someone else. Building and buying contrast creating an asset with acquiring the completed result.
Meaning: A partner’s qualities matter more than the wealth attached to them. The contrast between fortune in and on a person redirects attention from possessions to character.
Meaning: The saying makes a tailor’s pocket sound lively with very little money and a thimble. The small contents contrast with the impression created by their jingle.
Meaning: Care with resources now may make later life less burdensome. The easy chair pictures comfort made possible by earlier restraint.
Meaning: Managing what you have carefully can be a resource in itself. Frugality is compared to owning an estate because it helps existing means go further.
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: Wealth can attract attention that looks like friendship. Notice whether people value your company and wellbeing, or mainly the benefits they receive from being near you.
Meaning: The rhyme places hunger and cold beneath furze, but silver and gold beneath broom. It assigns two plant settings opposite conditions of hardship and abundance.
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.
Meaning: Giving to people in need is pictured as enriching the giver. That increase may be understood as moral or communal value rather than a promised material return.
Meaning: An attractive appearance or impressive presentation does not guarantee real value. Look beyond the shine before deciding that a person, offer or object deserves your trust.
Meaning: Even something valuable can cost more than it is worth in the circumstances. Compare the whole sacrifice with the actual benefit rather than assuming that a prized result justifies any price.
Meaning: Money by itself does not constitute a fully flourishing life. Other conditions can matter, while having sufficient material resources remains a real and legitimate need.
Meaning: Money can open many worldly doors, but the saying denies it the same power over Heaven. It contrasts material influence with spiritual worth, rather than describing a purchase that guarantees access everywhere.