What is..."Better the devil you know?" actually asking? What does it mean?

Answer 1

It means better to be one your familiar with than one you have never dealt with.

Answer 2

I may be wrong... but I think its simply saying its better to face a situation that you are familiar with than the one that you don't know. This is often why people fall into cycles, and very rarely ever "break the cycle."

Consider Shakespeare:

"But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;"

Hes talking about life and death, but the part where he says: "And makes us rather bear those ills we have than to fly to others that we know not of?" that is saying the same thing as "Better the devil you know."

The idea is this, you might have it bad now, but if you do something different, you might have it worse! So, as Shakespeare so eloquently put it: "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;" We are afraid to change, because even though we are suffering incredibly by staying the same -- we are even more afraid over what unknown suffering a change might bring us!

To that end, I would answer: We will always fear what we don't know and what we don't understand. That is why we must develop the courage to explore the unknown. Otherwise you are being enslaved by your fears.

Answer 3

Never heard it before but it isn't difficult to imagine. A known devil is one that you are aware of; an unknown devil is more dandgerous because you can't prepare yourself for what you don't see coming. Hence, you know the devil and anticipate what you need to do to fight it. The unknown is feared more.

Answer 4

It's not asking anything. The entire phrase is, "Better the Devil that you know than the one that you don't." and it means that sometimes you're better off to learn to live with the problems you have than to swap them for a whole new set of problems that might be worse..

HTH

Doug

Answer 5

I hadn't heard the phrase in the form of a question... in my life it was part of a phrase; "the devil you don't know is better than the devil you know." That simply means that it's better to not know more "devils," or bad habits/bad people, than you already know in your life.

If you truly heard it as a question, "Better than the devil you know?" someone was comparing a person, place or thing to a bad person/place/thing you already know or have... and calling what they offered or knew about in your life better than that old bad thing.

Answer 6

It should be a statement.
It means the devil that you know is better than the devil that you don't know.
It basically means that the unknown is far scarier than anything else.

Answer 7

It means that you might have problems right now from your current situation but the future problems from making changes might be even worse.

Think of it in terms of a mayor of your city who is known to do some shady deals. Maybe his opponent in the next election would be even worse. If so should you vote out the first guy or should you keep him to avoid the other new guy?

Answer 8

You don't have the full saying there, it's.... I use monster, but devils good too....
"Better the monster you know, than the monster you don't."
It's saying means your better off with the awful things you know than the awful things you don't. This is not good advice, trust me. Your better off not hangin with monsters or devils. lol

Answer 9

You can react to the enemy that you know better than reacting to an unknown enemy.

Answer 10

Not sure