The collection / 3,980 fragments
Traditional sayings from a documented English collection, with reviewed meanings for an expanding editorial selection.
Meaning: The biggest option is not necessarily the best one. The comparison between a crab’s size and its desirable part challenges a choice made by scale alone, without making smallness an automatic sign of quality.
Meaning: A desired benefit may require doing the necessary work to reach it. Cracking the nut before eating its kernel links a result to its practical prerequisite, without promising that any amount of effort guarantees success.
Meaning: Clever manipulation may fail to deliver a lasting benefit. Craft here suggests scheming, rather than the skill of making something well.
Meaning: The saying values honesty above other skills, presenting trustworthy conduct as an achievement in itself. Technical ability is more useful when people can also rely on how it is exercised.
Meaning: Clever avoidance does not turn an inaccurate account into a truthful one. Consider whether an answer addresses the substance of the question rather than merely finding words that sidestep it.
Meaning: Crazy describes an unsound ship in the image, so even ordinary winds become difficulties. Figuratively, a weak arrangement may struggle under many conditions; the saying asks about the underlying structure rather than treating every challenge as an independent stroke of bad luck.
Meaning: Something that appears frail may last longer than observers expect. The creaking-gate image questions confident predictions from outward signs, rather than promising durability, dismissing a real fault or forecasting a person’s health.
Meaning: The person or part making the most noise may be contributing least or functioning poorly. The creaking wheel invites a distinction between attracting attention and doing useful work, without treating every complaint as worthless.
Meaning: Damaged trust or reputation may be harder to repair than to preserve. The broken glass pictures that fragility, warning about consequences without claiming that one mistake permanently destroys someone’s credibility or makes rebuilding trust impossible.
Meaning: People owed something may remember an obligation more keenly than those who must meet it. Do not assume that your forgetfulness means the other person has forgotten too.
Meaning: Learn the basic steps before attempting a more demanding task. Gradual preparation can help, while the appropriate starting point depends on the learner and the skill involved.
Meaning: Criticism can help refine work that someone else has made. The clothes-brushing comparison gives the critic a supporting role, without assuming every criticism improves the work or that commenting is equivalent to creating it.
Meaning: A distorted approach can leave a corresponding mark on its results. The crooked tree and shadow picture that connection, without proving that every disappointing outcome reveals bad intent or a flawed person.
Meaning: An imperfect-looking input can still serve a useful purpose. The crooked-log image challenges judging suitability by neatness alone, without making every flawed material adequate or excusing harmful conduct because it produces a desired result.
Meaning: A valued reward may require accepting difficulty or sacrifice. The cross stands for hardship and the crown for the hoped-for reward.
Meaning: Each cross is pictured as carrying its own inscription, suggesting that difficulties have particular features rather than being interchangeable. The saying can invite attention to those particulars without claiming that suffering contains a divinely assigned message or a necessary lesson.
Meaning: The saying pictures crosses as ladders toward heaven. Burdens are made into a religious image of possible progress rather than mere obstruction.
Meaning: The saying presents crosses as ladders leading to heaven. It gives burdens a hopeful direction within a religious interpretation of suffering.
Meaning: Affection or personal attachment can make someone see what is theirs as especially admirable. The saying points to partial judgement without making a loved person or cherished work objectively inferior.
Meaning: The saying pictures repeated washing failing to whiten a crow. As an analogy, it can distinguish an inherent characteristic from something superficial that effort can remove.
Meaning: The saying treats a crowing hen as a sign that things will go badly. A critical reading notices the negative judgment attached to an animal taking an unexpected role.
Meaning: The saying connects cruel rule with fear, suggesting that domination can make both ruler and subjects watchful. It invites scrutiny of coercive conduct, but it is not a universal account of another person’s motives or proof that fear always reveals cruelty.
Meaning: Cruelty is condemned by imagining it as something the devil enjoys. The image expresses moral disapproval of causing suffering, without providing evidence about supernatural beings or deciding the facts of a particular dispute.
Meaning: An available benefit can attract people who want a share. Crumbs and chickens make that attraction visible, without proving that everyone who joins an activity is selfish or that every offer will draw interest.