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Old Sayings

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 3:34 pm
by MaxPC
Remember those old sayings that everyone learned at their parents' knees and that guided us in understanding human behavior as well as life's quirks? We had started a list on the old MD and I thought it would be nice to try to salvage some of those wisdom nuggets here.

Describing people with guilty consciences:
-"Throw a stone into a pack of dogs and the dogs that are hit will yelp."
-Paraphrase of Shakespeare's Hamlet -"Methinks he/she doth protest too much."

When weather or news are bad:
-"If you don't like the weather/news wait a little while and it'll change."

Can you think of any others?

Re: Old Sayings

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 7:16 pm
by Neto
Shakespeare again, in The Tempest:
"He that would sup with the devil hath need of a long spoon."

Re: Old Sayings

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:20 pm
by Robert
Ain't no hill for a stepper.
It'll get better before you get married. (For every sickness, cold, cut, scrape, sore or contusion I suffered as a child.)

Re: Old Sayings

Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:01 am
by MaxPC
"Swimming upstream". I don't know how old it is but the depth of meaning is worth plumbing. Thanks goes to RZehr for using that one :up:

Re: Old Sayings

Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2017 12:35 am
by gcdonner
"Work smarter, not harder."
"A stitch in time saves nine."
"If there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it just might be a train is coming..."

Re: Old Sayings

Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2017 9:19 am
by MaxPC
Here's one our cousin uses all the time with some of her acquaintances:

"Holding a grudge is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die."

Don't know where she picked it up but it is apt.

Re: Old Sayings

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2017 7:09 am
by MaxPC
Our professors used to repeat a maxim about certain students: "the less they know, the more they argue."
:lol:

Re: Old Sayings

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2017 12:08 pm
by gcdonner
"An excuse is the skin of the truth filled with a lie." That was a saying that the pastor I served with back in the late 80s used.

Re: Old Sayings

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:00 pm
by MaxPC
gcdonner wrote:"An excuse is the skin of the truth filled with a lie." That was a saying that the pastor I served with back in the late 80s used.
:up:

A related one:
"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."
Ben Franklin

Re: Old Sayings

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:50 pm
by gcdonner
Measure twice, cut once.

A stitch in time saves nine.

I haven't lost my hair, my face has just gotten taller... :laugh

related to the last one:

What I used to comb, I now wash with a cloth.