What has been the most powerful "popular idiom" in your life?

Question

Everybody has internalized popular sayings, old adages, axioms, or idiomatic expressions that friends, relatives, or your parents used to quote...repeatedly! These can often be seemingly trite observations - even "common-sensical" that in fact have much greater meanings hidden unden their veneer, e.g., "Where ever you go, there you are!" With this in mind, please provide an example of when one of these idioms, hit you with an almost blinding, epiphany-like experience - a kind of "enlightenment" when you realized that indeed "Still waters [CAN] run deep."
This is NOT the kind of question that can be answered with two short 'n' sweet sentences... so PLEASE, serious players ONLY! If you're a "get in and get out quick" freak - looking for a quick "2-point pick-up," PLEASE answer another question more suitable for your "needs." Answers for this question should be "anecdotal" in nature... so please honor that request. We can ALL benefit from this, so please give your best effort.

This question has gleened some wonderful responces but not near the quantity for which I hoping... Please think about that favote adage of your father, mother, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, grandparents, friends, etc., and expand why it hold special meaning in your life.

Answer 1

Time wounds all heels...a play on words that has stuck with me..I guess a part of me wants to believe in what is called karma, although sometimes i question whether its not simply self-righteous and self-serving. We're all human and the world is harsh, eh?
Anyone that lives long enough finds that they can sometimes be "in the right" but judged to be wrong, or that rational thinking can be inadequate in handling difficulties. This creates what you might call a paradox and we have no choice but to upend our way of thinking to get through. So I chose a popular idiom that has been played with because it reflects how we all deal with "unsolvables".

Answer 2

Be patient! This is a really hard one.When you hear it ,it is immeasureable,until you have to deal with the actual "time" it can take to get the end result.Usually this is something beyond your own control,especially since it is always,usually words told to you.It is an open ended,non guided word for you to act on.Maybe it should never be said,a better set of words for this would be "twiddle your thumbs",or 'be a ghost".I always feel non-existant when I am told this.When a relationship is in limbo,and I was told this..it hurt..not because I can't wait,or won't,but because it is such a "crutch" word for someone to fall back on,because the person saying this has just gotton more time,where as you,just got verbally,emotionally,physically,,scarred with a "black hole" feeling in your gut..and you think time may expire before you can share what is in your heart towards that person who "gets to sail"while your sail just loses wind..and your ship is forever in that airless bottle,lost!!

Answer 3

You ask for something like this and yet you also ask (put restrictions on) people answering to give you something which most often doesn't apply to it!!! How any of them effected us or what any of them meant to us will not apply to you in the same manner. Similar maybe, but not the same.

Many things like that such as: "Still waters run deep", is and of itself short, simple and to the point! Its meaning is as varied as humans are different from one another!

I've had a very rough life in many ways, especially throughout my childhood, I've heard, learned and experienced many such things. Basically what you're asking me is to GIVE you something which came at a great price to me..... As you grow older you will most likely experience many of those things yourself first hand!!! That's really the ONLY way you will ever appreciate what any of them mean.

Answer 4

"20 years"
My great grandma, grandma, and mother where in great grandma kitchen one afternoon, and they all laughed and said "20 Years!"
I asked what they meant by that. They answered in laughter, "You will understand in 20 years."
Now I was married, 17 and unknowingly pregnant.
Sitting their in frustration because they knew sometime that I didn't.
My frustration turned into laughter and joy as I heard their stories of grandma, mom, my uncle, the grandchildren, etc when we were all little.
Grandma was getting a little upset at some of the stories great grandma was sharing becasue they were hurting her feelings.
In defense of my grandma who was now in tears, I said, "I wish your mom was hear so we could hear stories of you when you were little.
Great grandma started to cry, they all did, because they missed my great great grandma so.
That was the begining of my education in the matters of life, "20 years."
Great grandma starting relating some of the stories that her mother would tell.
Then laughter filled the room once more as some of them were just as painful for her to tell as the ones she was telling about my grandmother.
Then the three of them turned the conversation back to the fun times they shared and I was able to enjoy those presious family stories.
What did I get to start my life out with?
That life is good, enjoy it.
Do not carry a grudge with family or friends because there are many more good times in life than bad ones.
Laugh while you can, and with the ones you love, because you don't know how long they will be with you.
My great grandma died about 2 weeks later.
But I remember her that afternoon, laughing, enjoying life and passing on the memoires that I still hold so dear.

Answer 5

"This, too, shall pass away." I've had good time and great times in my life, and I've had bad times and terrible times. Knowing the transience of all things, I've savored and rejoiced, and I've endured patiently while working to make thing better. A couple of years ago I got hit by a jeep while crossing the street. I spent two weeks in the hospital and three months in a wheelchair, eventually, after a lot of work, not to mention prayer, I stood and walked away. That, too, had passed. To misquote Dominique You: There is only one thing you can be certain of in life, and that is that it will end in death, so live a life that you can look back on and say "I have truly lived!". You, himself, said to spit in Death's eye when he comes, never cared for that one. As Jonathon Swift put it: "Happily have I lived, and Happily die, and lay me down with a will".

Answer 6

42

Answer 7

"Circle of life" has always been of interest to me. I don't think we can carry on in this life without some way to explain the bad things that happen to all of us. Thinking of life as a circle that goes on and on, in different forms and different faces helps me endure. When my beloved died last year, I saw no reqason to continue alone, but I eventually realized that my mother still needed me and my son still needed me, so even though life stops, it goes on in another form.
Native tribes worship the roundness of things - sun, moon, seasons. It seems the only way to stay sane in the midst of loss and change.

Answer 8

"You can't take care of those you love until you take care of yourself"
I had learned by past generations of examples to give and give until you are bitter and angry and empty.Then blame the person you have given to. Sacrafice for the others made a person a professional Victom. Always wanting to please others, then complaining that no one thinks of you. Very passive/agressive behavior. I had to choose a better way of dealing with life and that had to begin with taking care of myself.

"Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me......"

Answer 9

"The more you run over a cat, the flatter it gets."

I use this one in a similar way as "beating a dead horse." To find out those times in life where our efforts are futile, we have accomplished all we are going to on a particular topic.

The you say "That cat is flat!"...subject closed.

Answer 10

Sugar my a@$e. When someone took this literally, I found myself enlightened. The literal response made me think more about what I said and to whom I said it.