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On Proverbs

Of proverbs
Smart proverb use enables nice crops to grow in time.
Rewarding proverbs contain lots of food for thought. Some of them, as many in The Book of Proverbs in the Bible, offer practical boons and wisdom (sagacity). Below are three essays on proverbs, for the most part in a historical setting.

Sustaining wise handling T
Of focal interest in ancient Israel T
Wisdom carriers T

Supporting reservations are presupposed throughout:

Great proverbs sustain wisdom

Think "well-well" to fit in and avoid drudgery.

- at least with a little practice

GREAT SAYINGS uphold obedience to to certain established ways of thinking and conceiving a lot of things. Thus, great-looking sayings often assist superiors and a long development under some of them. And great sayings can also work the other way round to liberate minds from dogmatic tenets from topdog ranks. We have both traditions intact, and both can be ferretet out within the vast bulk of handed-over proverbs from this and that country. Some candid, good sayings from days gone by still help beginners to escape from the clutches of such as indolent narcissism around. Hebrew, proverbial wisdom tries to establish such practical outcomes. Through what is called common sense agreements in a culture, what is hoped to be blossoming or good wisdom is 'purchased' or bought, that is, appropriated somehow.
To turn deeply religious can suggest deep-seated problems. To master spiritual nature is different.

How solid wisdom can be had - setting the scene

YOU DON'T get something for nothing. [Ap 551] Much self-searching may be necessary. And what is best is hardly ever revealed - that is one of the instructions of the Taoist writer Chuang-tzu (Zhuangzi) - at his best and yet showing it? In the light of this, let us inspect proverbs, good and tidy proverbs, and see what we can make out of that.

Hebrew, proverbial wisdom tries to establish practical outlets

What one doesn't know won't hurt him. [Ap 352]

WISDOM is great help so as not to flounder. Some good proverbs revolve around the worth and meaning of human life, others are on how to conduct oneself in a fair way.
Nice speculation often helps budding, sound wisdom onward and upward. The finest proverbs of the Bible were conceived as authoritative words, primarily in maxims about the practical, intelligent way to conduct one's life along with one's neighbours. ¤
Hebrew wisdom owes much to its neighbours. It appears with the establishment of the royal court of Solomon. Two principal types of wisdom - one practical and utilitarian, the other speculative and very often pessimistic - arose both inside and outside Israel. The book of Proverbs of the Hebrew Bible gives practical wisdom. Job and Ecclesiastes often give speculative wisdom as an old art form.

Deeply religious could suggest some deep-seated problems

EXCELLENT standards for wisdom is found in a collection of sayings attributed to Ptahhotep, the vizier to the Egyptian pharaoh about 2450 BC: the sage counsels his son that the path to material success is by way of proper etiquette, strict discipline, and hard work.
A long exile made Hebrew wisdom, on the other hand, turn deeply religious. There was no need for all that earlier. It may seem that much, long and hard persecution from inside or other quarters makes one aspire too much beyond the immediate grasp and reach. In other words, here could be a basis for becoming religious-looking. With rational science it could be the other way round.
Ptahhotep, a vizier of ancient Egypt, wrote proverbial sayings and promoted the ability to keep silence when necessary.
His sayings upheld obedience to a father and a superior as the highest virtue and shows that many moral instructions can be largely materialistic and political and contribute to a well-ordered society. In many ancient cultures in or around Mesopotamia they functioned in that way. ¤
Wisdom arrived at through clever, well-founded speculations, reflects on particular deeper problems of the value of life and of good and evil and may point at something of much interest. You may like to know that some of the psalms and a few other brief passages have proverbs of wisdom inside them. Further, Bibical parables, riddles, allegories are rooted in mashals, proverbs.
Probably composed during the late New Kingdom of Egypt, the ancient author Amenemope's collection of maxims and admonitions sets forth practical injunctions for living. The text appears to be the culmination of a long development of Egyptian wisdom literature.

To go for fair, practical wisdom and get accomplished later, is wise

PRACTICAL wisdom consists chiefly of wise sayings that appeal to experience and offer prudential guidelines for a successful and happy life in a given setting. What we may call black wisdom consists in how to manage life. Machiavelli's "The Prince" is a neat example. Black wisdom doesn't have to be sinister. Much of that sort of wisdom is found in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts where sensitive poets speak up to the success of the wicked, the suffering of the innocent, and justice of human life - where is it?
"The Maxims of Ptahhotep" of ancient Egypt were written mainly for young men of well-to-do families. They emphasize humility, and faithfulness in performing one's own duties.
Later, in Israel, wise men that are long gone, were convinced that religion alone possesses the key to life's highest values.
A budding parable can lie in certain Oriental proverbs. The mashal form andicent Israel is a pithy, easily memorized aphoristic saying based on experience. It seems quite universal in application. It was the most common form of wise sayings intended for oral instruction at the court of Jews. Hebrew mashal means "comparison" or "parable," yet is often translated "proverb". In its simplest and oldest form is a couplet where a definition is given in two parallel lines related to each other in special ways: antithetical or synthetical.
Antithetic saying: He who spurns his father's discipline is a fool, he who accepts correction is discreet.

In Israel, through centuries men of pragmatic realism were rebuked by prophets for their now canonical wisdom. ¤

Gist 1: Worldy tidy like any minister is no real loss

IT PAYS to be discreet and relevant - true to facts for most part and that is quite an art inside the grosser art of living. Wisdom isn't much staunch if it isn't rooted in how God's universe works - like a clockwork of many well adjusted facets and parts. Here and there a screw or bolt gets loose.

Hebrew, proverbial wisdom tries to establish practical outcomes. So should you and I - deep, solid, practical and solid outcomes.
Deeply religious seems to suggest deep-seated problems. And wisdom often helps: it tends to involve psychoanalytic wisdom as well. Great sayings uphold obedience to a bare father and a long development to escape the clutches of the indolent narcissism of the age.
To go for fair, practical wisdom and get accomplished later, is wise. So-called black or wordly wisdom doesn't have to be sinister at all by its emphasis on typical humility of role-play; family adaptations;, faithfulness in doing ones duties; and being tidy in okay, fair ways fairly often.

Proverbs 2: The focal wisdom in ancient Israel

Proverbs in the Old Testament and elsewhere attempt at well rounded and preferably fit terseness

THERE'S wisdom and wisdom. Behind many clumsy customs and parallellisms in India is syncretic totemism including synergetic idol worship. Yet there's wisdom that is syncretic.
Syncretic wisdom could blur and give nonsense in trying to embrace, span and reconsile. Another is divisional. it strives to draw sharp delineations.
Much Hindu wisdom is syncretic. Much faith that smart guys give on in the USA these days, can be judged as outcomes of syncretic blends or attempts at that. Much is rooted in days gone by, where formerly well separate gods appeared to get amalgamated and blended for many reasons. Relationships were construed and many elegant tales from there strove to build a pyramid of hovering counterparts to angels and archangels (devas or shining ones).

DILIGENCE and relevance is all it takes to gather much second-hand wisdom. The wisdom development of ancient Hebrews is a part of historical reality and is of that kind.
Personal or individual striving and fairness has to be well rooted in wisdom - there is no way out unless. And solid wisdom is largely had by erring like hell and yet survive and learn from one's mistakes - the sooner the better, before malfunctioning takes the upper hand. God's chosen Jews behaved like this - and king Solomon. They blew it. So they had the platform fo seeing much -
All the same, skilled, science-aided observance of regular laws may be coupled with only minor, harmful effects - we learn on top of that, and often that fruit is good.
Through poems or discourses a father is capable of exhorting sons to acquire wisdom and benefit on top of that - the sooner the better.

Get through the barriers to find solid wisdom and solutions today as well

LAWS OR common standards need to be classified (grouped in set ways) and perhaps much systematically defined. In other words: laws depend on man's capacity to define and understand. Often these particular assets are shielded from insight. No matter what, it should help a person to strive to get practical and up to date - but in the long run it seems in vain no matter how. Ageing and death present some barricades or limits we hardly like, all of us.

Diligence and fairness is to be well rooted in wisdom - there is no way out unless

It rains on the just and the unjust. - American proverb

GOOD OLD Jews found that wealth and status are most important. The rewards for thrifty observance of regular laws are defined in terms of human values; e.g., health, long life, respect, possessions, security, and self-control.
Industry and diligence are to be fostered, as hunger, poverty, and slavery are the fate of the lazy ox.
It may help to present some sharp contrast or dividing-line in one way or the other. Inside very many Biblical proverb there are much of just that kind of divisional outlooks and emphases of Israel's faith. That is attested in the Hebrew Scriptures anyhow.
The focus of Proverbs is much centred on man. To the pragmatic proverb makers in God's own Bible, God was largely conceived of as rather static. Hence there is no appeal to divine mercy, intervention, or forgiveness. We have other books for that. The Proverbs is definitely optimistic in assuming that wisdom is attainable by diligence and application that doesn't get out of hand.
The value of a really good maxim is had by living up to in in one way or other, with no harmful effects.
In the light of Proverbs, it can be difficult to say what is the difference between the wicked and the fool - or between the just and the wise. Fools can be wicked! And fools are those who can never catch up, because of either the determinism of birth or wasted years of neglect. ¤
Some proverbs attributed to Solomon, are closely related to the Egyptian master-piece of 30 chapters,"The Instruction of Amenemope," (1000-600 BC). With Solomon, wisdom is the first of God's works and participated with him in the creation of the world.
The ancient Jews meant the wise are to be helped on and up by proverbs of merit, assisted by such as training and self-discipline- This is a fore-runner of the tick tack toe strategy of discipline on top of bland, good proverbs. The tick tack toe design strings and glues lots of canonical sayings into a training program that can be modified in lots of ways - a novelty!
We have an "educational discipline that trusts human reason and employs research, classifying and interpreting the results and bequeathing them as a legacy to future generations", as Encyclopedia Britannica assesses its Biblical forerunners to be.
One central implication has been found: For Proverbs God's revelation of himself can stand revealed in quite universal, or natural principles or handling norms we attained at. Jews studied patterns of nature, especially human nature, i.e. God revealing himself as order-bringer of creation, quite like Greek logos - they hardly look into redemption.

The wisdom development of ancient Hebrews is a part of historical reality

PROVERBS and stringed proverbial sayings do not need to refer to a particular history. To be classy is much like that. It means to soar up and embrace sitting measures of how things can be, what matters and what do to about it - if times and conditions permit.
The proverbs in the Bible is a mixture with appendixes to many of the collections - a compiled anthology that refers to the Egyptian forerunner as one of its sources.
The wisdom movement meant much for the cultural development of ancient Israel.
We find the interesting "loose or strange woman" who is set over against wisdom. Man can be "punished" by transgressing against the orders of life as God established - we could mean he'd have to take what professor Haim Ginott talks of as some "natural consequences" of that, and of not following suit. [Par] ¤
Some sayings contain elements of riddle and show a special interest in the wonders of nature and the habits of animals.
It is the primary document of the religious and cultural movement in ancient Israel and presents God's wisdom as a universal and abiding reality, transcending the human scene.
The introduction constitutes the youngest unit. It consists of a series of poems or discourses where a father exhorts his son to acquire wisdom and where wisdom personified intervenes.

Proverbs assume a bit, illustrate in hard ways, and try to express the not so evident lore. Eventually we come up with standards for living through it

THE WISE are those who systematically dedicate themselves to probing out some "God-way" or other. There is also a final poem in praise of the "perfect wife" with her domestic virtues. Besides, age and accepted conventions are accorded great respect.
The first nine chapters do not treat wisdom simply as a human quality and achievement or as a cultural legacy imparted by teachers and parents; Proverbs assumes man can discover enough about God and his law to ensure the fulfillment of his personal life.

As they say, man's destiny depends upon his responsible action. To illustrate, the wise are contrasted with fools, and the just with the wicked. What is more, the wise are responsible again and again. ¤
The meaning of God's revelation may not be immediately self-evident, but can be searched and later discovered by man. Also, the motivation to look up may be practical: to gain sound wisdom must be a great inner achievement: man's life can be fulfilled through it as well.
A long process of growth went into Proverbs. It was not completed until post-exilic times.
The book deals very much in cardinal ethical norms and standards fit for living an upright life. ¤¤

Gist 2: Get abused and learn through that -

They say one learns from one's mistakes. That may not have to happen. And functional wisdom is the best. Still, to err for real is a primate means to gather lots of wisdom into how not to do things.

Diligence and fairness is to be well rooted in wisdom - there is no way out unless. Careful observance of regular laws has to be coupled with with only minor, harmful effects.
The wisdom development of ancient Hebrews is a part of historical reality. Through poems or discourses a father is capable of exhorting sons to acquire wisdom and benefit on top of that - the sooner the better.
Proverbs assume a bit, illustrate in hard ways, and try to express the not so evident lore. Eventually we come up with standards for living through it. The wise are responsible again and again. And they could get abused through decent, upright lives as a minority, unlike elves. That must be the secret - have we any proof to the contrary?

Proverbs 3: Glittering wisdom carriers

The blunt tale, maybe no other form of tale works better

ON AUGUST 26, 1944, one of US general George Patton's units crossed the Seine at Melun, outflanking Paris. Patton sent Eisenhower a formal military report of the operation with the postscript:
"Dear Ike, Today I spat in the Seine."
(Patton was, by the way, nicknamed "Old Blood-and-Guts." A variant substitutes "pissed" for "spat.")

The blunt tale can be the best

ONE REASON why the blunt tale is the best, is that it means business, goes straight to the point without ado, and delivers its message like it is. A blunt tale can be had through proverbial devices, including slamming. And it may be made memorable for it - in other words we have didactic means that interest and by that helps long-term memory. It must be made use of.

LOVE dear proverbs for the lyrical strains they are. Excellent proverbs tend to make life more cosy.
Besides, sensible and fair tutoring can be had through proverbs - that’s one of the oldest lessons. Very much good sense for fair play may be transmitted by such as proverbs - well rounded or colourful ways of wording.
It is good to have standard ways of sifting pertinent instructions and lifting them over into other river-beds of contacts (enclaves).

Time passes away, but good sense may be transmitted by such as proverbs and fables hand in hand

A PROVERB comes not from nothing, just like a cartoon animal. [Dp 197]

Fair and fit tutoring can be had through proverbs - that’s one of the oldest lessons around

Hard, skilled sayings can turn into proverbs

WITH SKILLED proverbs, there is need for caution. Much of your understanding depends on interpretation, a facet of hermeneutics. Often we have to think a lot and ask persons to be trusted as to their typical meanings. A nurse may know some, but professor Pelle Holm in Sweden may know two thousand times more. [Po] At other times we have to make good guesses nicely attuned to own experiences. It is often like that.
Good proverbs are related to riddles and fables in many traditions. And very many biblical proverbs have Norse equivalents. Besides, a proverb can be found in many variants. Choose the best as to main content if you can find it. We’ve inspected nearly 200 000 from major cultures, including our own. [Daf]
Folk proverbs are commonly illustrated with homely imagery - household objects, farm animals and pets, and daily and yearly events of life. They can be considered long shots. Thanks to very neat imagery you can derive metaphoric sideviews and lessons on top of that. This makes proverbs very handy to use in a lot of settings, but not all of them.
The oldest writings on earth appears to be Sumerian and contains proverbs uses as teaching-aids: Sumerian inscriptions give grammatical rules in proverbial form. A lot proverbs loom tall, and get wide-spread - others seem to get spread for no good reason. The biblical book of Proverbs, traditionally associated with Solomon, includes sayings from earlier compilations. And "Physician, heal thyself" (Luke 4:23) was known to the Greeks. Many biblical proverbs have parallels in ancient Greece. Proverbs are part of every spoken language. To present rules from textbooks in the form of neat, terse, near-proverbial utterances can be great help for mastery learning, because we humans tend to recall and reflect better through proverbs and excellent summaries - it aids recall and may leave open a field of multiple recognitions quite often. By those aids figure-formation is had and is free to go further - Even a scientific process in general is had like this, according to; «One answer often opens up ten new questions».
Today, literate societies have valued terse proverbs and collected them for later times. The study of folklore in the 1900s has brought renewed interest in the proverb as a reflection of folk culture too. We should collect them to use them in our everydays, as they were used before - and still are in very many places, including Scandinavia. Fit and proper use of them depends on ready-made, estimates of typical degrees of plausibility under special circumstances for each of them. With smart use it’s often different. That makes it interesting.
There are many sources, much is in flux. You may make proverbs yourself. Many famous and known men in history have spoken daggers, and after that, their stabbing sayings have remained as common proverbs. Here is one: «Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.» This British proverb is based on a quotation from The Mourning Bride by William Congreve (1670-1729). [Dp 262] It happens that popular usage creates new proverbs from old ones, and maybe others like «Heaven knows no fury wilder than that of a laughed-at, gesturing bride running away». Also, "Money is the root of all evil" appears to be derived from the biblical and better one: "The love of money is the root of all evil". New concoctions can outrun older ones, or outflank them.
Many languages use rhyme, alliteration, and wordplay in their proverbs. Such gambits also involve well twisted or colourful ways of wording. «It is an ill-bred dog that will beat a bitch.» We don’t talk like that normally, that’s why the construction of very nimble, poetical or proverb-like utterances appears twisted at times, only to carry the central message through special mental barricades for it - it happens. We can assume that twisted, colourful proverb-like wording aids a message to get through by hook and crook, and at times as if through ambush. We speak of fine devices to counteract unruly or neurotic defences against sound and tidy instruction according to; «None so deaf as he that won’t hear."

Love the dear proverb like lyrical strains also

A PROVERB is the wit of one and the wisdom of many. [Dp 197]. A proverb is very often used to transmit accumulated, very empirical handling norms - that sort of wisdom - along with great rules of conduct. As such, they tend to ensure a better life. One of the earliest English proverb collections is Proverbs of Alfred (c. 1150-80) of religious and moral precepts.
Very many Oriental proverbs make frequent use of hyperbole and colourful pictorial forms of expression according to light rules of couplets, more or less. Elegant sayings may become proverbs, and proverbs tend to form part of ethical codes of behaviour or half-norms. The dear proverb can advocate certain standards, or classy standards have to be subsumed or evolved in step with some figured or major impact from it. Excellent proverbs tend to make life more cosy. They read like lyrical poetry at times. ¤

There are many sorts of proverbs. As gleaned wisdom of many nations, proverbs could reveal many "truths", and some can even fit in and be applied well. We speak of odds by it. [Ap 489]

Classical Latin proverbs are typically pithy and terse (e.g., Praemonitus, praemunitis; "forewarned is forearmed"). Very many stylistic similarities between Latin proverbs are rooted in the Latin grammar, that allows terseness - it helps memory very well. In Europe Latin proverbs were wide-spread in the Middle Ages.
In a culture or class a lot proverbs reflect a canon of common sense or hearsay - these strands combine a lot. In the light of this, many handed-over proverbs had better be sifted with a view to their degrees of plausibility - i.e. how plausible they are in this and that context. Their value depends on that, if our main educative aim is to evolve and apply central messages attuned to them in a real way - The point is that in any setting and culture, major ways of expression and adaptation are had by pre-scientific ways and means.
However, by carefully guarded study one may gauge the odds for a given proverb to come true in various contexts, and next seek to express it in much the same way as the social scientist gives vent to hypotheses of merit. Our fee faw fum strategy of handling select utterances fits it perfectly well. Careful modifications are presumed or built into the pattern of escalating proverbial kernels.
For all that, we stand on top of an old European tradition, with many roots back to ancient Egypt from as early as 2500 BC. Here we come up with one partial Egyptian description of a lucky man: "- he will come up with a fish in his mouth."

In England in the 16th century a speech in proverbs was made in the House of Commons. Some proverbs refer to obsolete customs. The use of proverbs in literature and oratory was at its height in England in the 1500s and 1600s, a period when English culture rose. ¤
Proverbs come from many sources. Some can be difficult to trace. And the same kernel of wisdom may be gleaned under different cultural conditions and languages. In North America the best-known use of proverbs is probably in Poor Richard's Almanac by Benjamin Franklin. Many of Franklin’s sayings were traditional European proverbs reworked by him.
Proverbs are generally thought of as succinct and pithy saying in general use, expressing commonly held ideas and beliefs, but they can and should be sifted and evolved for enhancing the fairly common good of men, in principle. There can be many outlets - Proverbs were used in ancient China for ethical instruction, and the Vedic writings of India use them to expound philosophical ideas. In Scandinavia they serve active, fair living on, even good living and lots of other things.
The use of proverbs in monasteries to teach novices Latin, in schools of rhetoric, and in sermons, homilies, and didactic works made them widely known and also preserved in manuscripts. They can embody superstition for all that - "Early to bed, early to rise,/ Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise". Not so! ¤¤
In other words, close inspection suggests that these factors hardly fit perfectly all right, aren’t the most central sides to how to get healthy, wealthy and wise either, but may have some spill-over effects on it that are good.

Gist 3: Be on the outlook for lyrical-looking poetics that seems well twisted to work its way inwards

Fair tutoring can be had through proverbs - that’s one of the oldest lessons. Maligning won’t help. Good sense may be transmitted by such as proverbs. We talk of a method of imparting wisdom and devices of instruction here. The 1900s has brought renewed interest in the proverb, its well twisted, well rounded or colourful ways of wording. The question is how well grounded it may be in any case. Circumspicion allied with much staunch experience is a great help to decide on it.
Love the dear proverb like lyrical strains also.Excellent proverbs tend to make life more cosy. They can read like lyrical poetry. Or look to Benjamin Franklin’s very traditional way of sifting instructions and lifting them over into another bed of culture of contacts.
There are many sorts of proverbs. As gleaned wisdom of many nations, proverbs could reveal many «truths», and some can even fit in and be applied well. We speak of odds by it. [Ap 489]. By carefully guarded study we can gauge how correct or fit a given proverb seems to be - tentatively estimate how likely it is that its central message(s) come true in various settings. It may not happen. Or we may rework proverbs for it. There are many facets of an art. Now, look to Benjamin Franklin. Many of his sayings were traditional European proverbs reworked to suit a new «climate». We could get allied with the most central sides of outstanding, fair proverbial sentences to keep our sanity intact, and get wiser in handling sides of life than by pure chance.

Adjoined

Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.

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