Your faults are not excused by the faults of somebody else.
> ‘Jack often travels on the train without a ticket, so why shouldn’t I?
> ‘Just because he does it, that’s no reason why you should. Two blacks don’t
make a white.’
##### See also:
* Two wrongs do not make a right
While two persons are disputing over something, somebody else takes advantage
of the fact that their attention is distracted. For example, there was only
one vacant seat left in the crowded hall. Mr Smith and Mr Brown were arguing
about which of them had the prior right to it, when Mr Robinson stepped past
them and sat down in it.
This is sometimes quoted as ‘Two’s company, three’s a crowd.’ Two friends
often agree well on their own; but the presence of a third may lead to
quarrelling. The saying can express the sentiments of courting couples in
particular.
Two people on the same trade, in the same field, that have the same interests
are both too envious, each imagining that the other is cleverer or better off
than he. The proverb is traced back to 1630 in written form.
> It is a common rule, and ’tis most true, Two of one trade never loue.
> [1630 Dekker _Second Part of Honest Whore_ II. 154]
> Two of a Trade can seldome agree.
> [1673 E. Ravenscroft _Careless Lovers_ A2 V]
> In every age and clime we see, Two of a trade can ne’er agree.
> [1727 Gay _Fables_ i. xxi.]
> Two of a trade, lass, never agree! Parson and Doctor!—don’t they love
rarely, Fighting the devil in other men’s fields!
> [1887 G. Meredith _Poems_ (1978) I. 148]
Your faults are not excused by the faults of somebody else. This means the
same as Two black do not make a white.
However great our grief or disappointment may be, in the course of time it
will lessen. In this sense our ‘wounds’ heal with time.
What was true or valid at a time in the past is not necessarily so today
because circumstances change. The proverb encourages us to keep up to date and
adapt our views to changed conditions because One cannot put back the clock.
We are all liable to make mistakes. The saying dates back to classical times.
We find it, for instance, in Seneca: ‘Humanum est errare.’ Alexander Pope used
it in his _Essay on Criticism_ (1711):
> Good nature and good sense must ever join;
> To err is human, to forgive, divine.
##### See also:
* Even homer sometimes nods
* No man is infallible
Tomorrow is always the day after today. If today is Thursday it will be
yesterday tomorrow, and Friday will be today. The saying is used as a worning
that Procrastination is the thief of time.
> ‘I’ll do it tomorrow,’ Tom promised his mother.
> ‘Tomorrow never comes, ‘she said. ‘Do it now.’
Similarly do our thoughts keep on coming back to something that is worrying
us.
A sharp tongue wounds. If you do not wish to hurt people’s feelings, do not
speak too harshly. As it says in the Apocrypha: ‘ _Many have fallen by the
edge of the sword, but not so many as have fallen by the tongue._ ‘
##### See also:
* The pen is mightier than the sword
As Buttercup and Captain Corcoran sing in __H.M.S. Pinafore__ :
> Things are seldom what they seem,
> Skim milk masquerades as cream.
The moral is contained in another proverb, Never judge by appearances.