Work.

Meaning: Give the task you have undertaken sufficient attention and care. Thoroughness means carrying out its purpose well rather than merely appearing occupied.

Meaning: Reaching an objective may require choosing and using an available route. Naming alternatives is useful only when one of them leads to practical action.

Meaning: A modest expenditure can help obtain a larger benefit. The small fish represents a deliberate investment whose possible return should justify what is given up.

Meaning: Some possible loss is not a reason to abandon an undertaking altogether. Compare the likely benefit and available protections with the cost of never starting.

Meaning: Something difficult or dangerous to obtain usually carries a substantial cost. The lion’s skin represents a prized result whose acquisition cannot simply be assumed cheap.

Meaning: A useful performance may depend on the resources that make it possible. The filled bagpipe represents provision needed before an expected sound can be produced.

Meaning: The saying imagines hard work keeping hunger away. Read it as an ideal of secure livelihood rather than proof that effort alone prevents poverty or need.

Meaning: Attention to an impressive image does not itself produce useful results. Compare claims of distinction with the work or benefit that would give those claims substance.

Meaning: Someone carrying valuable goods may receive little of their benefit. Look at how the rewards of an undertaking are shared with those whose effort makes it possible.

Meaning: Expecting water from the first stroke of a spade makes an outcome arrive before the necessary work. The image questions premature expectations while leaving room to assess whether further effort is worthwhile.

Meaning: A result can be spoiled at the point when work moves into its next stage. The crooked loaf makes careful handling part of finishing, rather than treating preparation alone as enough.

Meaning: When a task is within your own capacity, waiting for another person may needlessly delay it. The saying encourages taking an available step without making assistance or cooperation signs of weakness.

Meaning: Taking the product of someone’s work without permission wrongs the person who makes it. The kneading and baking bring the labour behind the loaf into view, rather than treating the finished thing as ownerless.

Meaning: Continuing an effort can help bring a task to completion. The claim about not tiring is encouragement to perseverance, rather than a literal demand to avoid rest or a guarantee of success.

Meaning: The contrast questions eagerness for benefits alongside reluctance to contribute. Shivering at work and sweating at meals are caricatured images, not reliable evidence of someone’s character or physical condition.

Meaning: Changing location may not remove a responsibility attached to a role. The ploughing ox questions an escape that changes surroundings alone, without declaring work unavoidable everywhere or requiring anyone to endure exploitation.

Meaning: A mill produces through operation, not merely by standing ready. The image contrasts having the means to do something with putting those means to useful work.

Meaning: Luck is pictured making room for itself rather than waiting passively. The elbowing image values active pursuit of an opening, without promising success or endorsing harm to people in the way.