The collection / 3,980 fragments
Traditional sayings from a documented English collection, with reviewed meanings for an expanding editorial selection.
Meaning: The saying humorously contrasts ordinary uncertainty with obligations and limits that people cannot simply wish away. Death and taxes form its emphatic pair, rather than a complete account of what is certain or a rule about any person’s tax liability.
Meaning: Be cautious about giving up something dependable for an uncertain expectation. Consider what is actually secured and what is only hoped for before treating a possible improvement as an available replacement.
Meaning: Experience can help a person recognise an unconvincing lure. The speaker claims they have seen enough to avoid being taken in by this particular trick.
Meaning: Two things may be very different despite being put together in a comparison. Chalk and cheese give the difference a vivid form, encouraging attention to relevant distinctions without deciding that comparison is always useless.
Meaning: The saying turns a sickroom into a chapel, suggesting illness can become an occasion for devotion. It connects a vulnerable setting with religious attention.
Meaning: Pay attention to the opportunity or interest that matters most to your purpose. The advice favors practical focus, while leaving open whether pursuing that advantage is fair or worth its costs.
Meaning: The saying mocks abandoning something dependable for an uncertain possibility without a sound reason. Its musical image puts the chooser among fools, but uncertainty alone does not make a choice foolish; the point is to examine what justifies the change.
Meaning: An unexpected change can happen quickly after a long period with little change. The saying expresses the uneven timing of events, not a prediction that a particular opportunity will arrive.
Meaning: A change of surroundings or routine can bring renewed growth. The pasture image suggests that staying in one place is not always best, without promising that every change will improve things.
Meaning: Generosity is imagined as receiving an unexpected return through divine care. The door-and-window image expresses trust that giving need not mean simple loss, without guaranteeing repayment or material reward.
Meaning: Care and generosity should include the people closest to you. Helping elsewhere does not excuse neglecting responsibilities to those who depend on you in everyday life.
Meaning: The saying claims that correcting one person improves many others. It treats a response to a single action as an example that a wider group may notice.
Meaning: The rhyme personifies cheese as a troublesome elf that digests everything except itself. Its comic contradiction presents the food as having a power it does not extend to its own substance.
Meaning: The saying places nothing after cheese, presenting it as the end of a sequence. The wording does not explain whether the rule concerns a meal, custom or another setting.
Meaning: The saying recommends turning a cheese seven times before it cools if it is to be good and kept old. A remembered count is attached to a preparation task.
Meaning: A year with abundant cherries is imagined as a joyful one. The rhyme associates a pleasing yield with celebration.
Meaning: Do not treat an expected benefit as if you already have it. Plans should allow for the possibility that an uncertain result will not arrive.
Meaning: A household may need to address problems rather than avoid every difficult conversation. The saying’s praise of chiding needs limits on how disagreement is expressed.
Meaning: Affection can become excessive indulgence when it prevents a child from learning limits or acting independently. The saying questions how care is expressed, rather than suggesting that a child needs less love.
Meaning: A child may appear to own something while an adult ultimately controls its use or benefit. The pig-and-bacon contrast exposes the difference between a nominal gift and practical ownership.
Meaning: The saying suggests that people who speak without calculated restraint may reveal what others conceal. It does not make children or people dismissed as fools automatically reliable witnesses.
Meaning: Those pictured as having fewer responsibilities or less awareness of difficulties may appear more carefree. The saying contrasts uncomplicated enjoyment with adult concerns.
Meaning: The saying pictures children and chickens continually picking at food. It groups two images of repeated small feeding into a broad claim of need.
Meaning: Children are presented as a form of wealth that cannot be measured in money. The saying values family relationships amid limited resources, but it should not romanticise poverty, impose parenthood or treat children as possessions or compensation for hardship.