I was having a conversation with my husband yesterday about how much we both hate repeating commonly-used sayings. But we both agree that a lot of them are relatively timeless. One of the sayings applicable to our conversation was
“Education begins at home.”
(For background, we were talking about a friend’s wife who informed me that she expects her son’s pre-school to teach him manners and responsibility, which is all well and good, but she eschews any responsibility for doing so at home. But that’s somewhat beside the point.)
Anyway, other sayings that ring true for me:
“Manners never go out of style.”
“Home is where the heart is.” (Well, not always - it’s usually spread among friends, too - but hopefully at least some of it is at home.)
“Don’t shit where you eat.” (I wish my cats caught on to this one.)
Took me a while to figure this out, but I worked with a guy that used to say:
“Same circus, different clowns.”
It took me several jobs after working with him to figure out that he was right. No matter where you go, there will be headaches, it’s up to you to figure out which ones you want to work with.
Oh, lots of them, including the contradicting ones.
I think my favorite is one my dad always used to say: “It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys.” Equally applicable to his office and my social circle at school. If you want to succeed, stop hanging out with losers!
*el mismo perro con distinto collar: *“same dog, different collar,” particularly adequate during organizational changes, or right after changing jobs and discovering the new boss is the old one’s twin.
*en todas partes cuecen habas(, y en la mía a calderadas): *“everywhere they cook beans, and back at my place by the potful”. When only the first part is used, it’s normally to indicate that moving away from problems doesn’t solve them. Also, that while beans are gassy everywhere… at least at home you already know the recipe.
A favorite of mine is cree el ladrón que todos son de su condición: “a thief believes that everybody is like him”; i.e., that everybody wants to steal and those who don’t do it, it’s because they can’t find a way to do it without being caught. It sounds cynical, but I’ve come to realize that in general people who refuse to trust others can’t themselves be trusted.
Is the clown/circus thing the same as “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?”
One I’ve found to be true is “Make sure your brain is in gear before revving up the mouth.”
This is a good one, and one that I could have used several times over the past few years in politician scandal threads! (Why is it that the ones caught having gay sex are demonstrable homophobes? Or anti-child pornography crusaders caught with child porn? Or anti-drug zealots caught with illegal drugs? Because they’re afraid everyone has the same nasty dirty thoughts they do, and that must be stopped!)