The cleverest of craftsmen cannot make things with his bare hands. Similarly,
if we are to undertake a task we must have the means of doing it.
##### See also:
* Give us the tools, and we will finish the job
* You cannot make bricks without straw
This saying is often misquoted and misconstrued. People say, ‘What’s bred in
the bone will come out in the flesh’ meaning that a natural tendency cannot be
restrained (e.g. Once a liar, always a liar). This is incorrect. The real
meaning is to do with heredity: we inherit certain characteristics from our
ancestors, and those same characteristics will be inherited from us by our
descendants. Once it is ‘in the flesh’ it will never come out.
##### See also:
* Like father, like son
It is too late to regret an action after it has been performed. It is no use
crying over spilt milk.
Whether we eat goose or gander, we have the same apple sauce with it, so what
is good for one is good for the other. If Barry plays a practical joke on
George, then complains when George does the same thing to him, George can say:
‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Fair’s is fair. ‘
A sundial tells the time only when the sun is shining upon it. If it is placed
where the sun cannot reach it, it will never tell the time. The moral is that
talents should not be hidden. Benjamin Franklin wrote:
> Hide not your talents, they for use were made.
> What’s a sun –dial in the Shade?
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* Hide not your light under a bushel
This is treated under If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing well.
This is a skit on the quotation from Shakespeare’s _Measure for Measure_ :
‘What’s is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.’ A similar saying is:
‘Heads I win, tails you lose’
Once a thing has been done, however difficult or dangerous it may be, it can
be done again. Take, for example, the example, the exploration of space. On
April 12th, 1961, Major Gagarin of the USSR circled the earth in Vostok I; on
May 5th of the same year Commander Shepherd of the USA attained a height of
117 miles in a space capsule; and on August 6th Major Titov made seventeen
orbits of the earth in Vostok II.
This is another way of saying One of these days is none of these days. ‘I’ll
do it one of these days.’ This means that you propose to do whatever it is
later on. The result is that it is never done at all.
In this life we either have too little of what we do want, or too much of what
we don’t want or can’t use. The same thought is to be found in The gods send
nuts to those who have no teeth.
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* Circumstances alter cases
This is good advice for wives. Keep your husband well fed and he will always
love you.
Here ‘opinion’ is ‘public opinion’. Our actions are influenced by what other
people may say or think about them.
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* What will Mrs. Grundy say?