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The best known Hobson's choice is "I'll give you a choice: take it or leave it", wherein "leaving it" is strongly undesirable. The phrase is said to have originated with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge , England, who offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in his stall nearest to the door or ...
Henry Fuseli's painting of Odysseus facing the choice between Scylla and Charybdis, 1794–1796. Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, which has been associated with the proverbial advice "to choose the lesser of two evils". [1]
A proverbial phrase or expression is a type of conventional saying similar to a proverb and transmitted by oral tradition. The difference is that a proverb is a fixed expression, while a proverbial phrase permits alterations to fit the grammar of the context. [1] [2] In 1768, John Ray defined a proverbial phrase as:
The proverb is mentioned in the Republic of Plato (424A and 449C) as a principle to be applied to marriage and procreation. Diogenes Laertius (VIII.10) reports the assertion of Timaeus that Pythagoras was first to use the saying, along with φιλία ἰσότης ( filía isótēs ) "Friendship is equality."
The three wise monkeys proverb has its origin in 17th century Japan, however interpretations vary—whereas in Buddhist tradition they are supposed to compel people to avoid bad deeds, in Western ...
Political cartoon c. 1900, showing the United States Congress as Buridan's ass (in the two hay piles version), hesitating between a Panama route or a Nicaragua route for an Atlantic–Pacific canal. Buridan's ass is an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will .
— Proverbs 23:15. 69. “Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck ...
The proverb is found in a number of forms. Benjamin Franklin included a version in his Poor Richard's Almanack (1758), but over a century earlier, the poet George Herbert included it in a 1640 collection of aphorisms.