Patterns & Metaphors
Proverb
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A proverb is a concise didactic statement or idiomatic folk expression, usually passing a judgment on a situation or suggesting a course of action. They are generally not of utility because of their direct meaning but because they can be applied to analogous situations. The power of a proverb is that the referred to subject is considered in the light of the universally acknowledged truth expressed in the proverb, and it thus derives ideational and emotional substance from that universal truth. Most of the commonly used proverbs are metaphors drawn from daily life or the observation of nature or are terse summaries of experience. Proverbs have a certain rhetorical force that can, without logic, sway an argument. They are excessively used for that reason even when the basic analogy they may depend on is false.
