A collection of paired proverbs, adages, and quotes with opposite meanings.
There is officially nowhere to turn for accurate advice (though if you were relying on proverbs for life guidance I imagine you need a lot more help than just advice right now). 🙂
- Opposites attract
- Birds of a feather flock together
- Forgive and forget
- Revenge is a dish best served cold
- Ignorance is bliss
- Knowledge is power
- (These can both be true if we make the elementary logical leap that therefore knowledge is not bliss.)
- A jedi gains power through understanding and a Sith gains understanding through power.-Palpatine, Star Wars
- Look before you leap
- He who hesitates is lost
- Out of sight, out of mind
- Absence makes the heart grow fonder
- Too many cooks spoil the broth
- Many hands make light the work
- (Both can be true if we assume that a shitty soup is easy to make. Seems fair.)
- Don’t judge a book by its cover
- The clothes make the man
- (We should probably judge men and books with different criteria anyway.)
- Beware Greeks bearing gifts
- Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth
- (The Trojans made an idiotic mistake, let’s leave them out of this proverb business altogether).
- The pen is mightier than the sword
- Actions speak louder than words
- (Ergo: written word>sword>spoken word ?)
- If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again
- Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result-Einstein
- (Haha, you fail and you’re crazy)
- You’re never too old to learn something new
- You can’t teach an old dog new tricks
- It’s better to be safe than sorry
- No pain, no gain
- Turn the other cheek
- He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue-Malone, The Untouchables
List Mimsy 