Kitchen Cliparts

Proverbs About Kitchen



Too many cooks spoil the broth
Although Many Hands Make Light Work, there should be only one cook in a kitchen. If there are several of them they will disagree with each other, get in each other's way, put too much salt in this and too much pepper in that, and spoil not only the soup but probably the whole meal also. The same thing applies to most other enterprises. If too many people try to do the same thing at the same time, chaos will reign.



Every family has a skeleton in the cupboard
Every family has a guilty secret that it does its utmost to conceal from the world.



You cannot have your cake and eat it
This is sometimes given as 'You cannot eat your cake and have it'. They both mean the same thing. It means if a choice has to be made between alternatives, you must have one or the other, not both. Again, you can't spend your money and save it at the same time.



The pot called the kettle black
A person tends to blame another for the faults he has himself. The soot from an open fire blackens the cooking utensils placed upon it, and the pot becomes no less blackened than the kettle. It has, therefore, no right to criticize the kettle, and neither have we the right to condemn others for behaving in the same way as we do ourselves.



He should have a long spoon that sups with the devil
Anyone who mixes with evil companions must have all his wits about him.





He who gives fair words feeds you with an empty spoon
We gain nothing from being flattered; nor do we profit from other people's excuses.




The last drop makes the cup run over
This has the same meaning as The Last Straw Breaks The Camel's Back. If you increase a camel's burden straw by straw, eventually you will load him with one straw too many and his back will be broken. The phrase 'the last straw' refers to something that, although small in itself, comes after many other troublesome things and produces at last the feeling of being intolerable.



There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip
Nothing is certain until you possess it.



Light not a candle to the sun
Don't try to throw more light on a matter that is already quite clear enough. Don't try to explain the obvious. Don't take the easy course of repeating what is already known, instead of making original researches into what is not known.



You cannot burn the candle at both ends
You cannot do two opposite things at one and the same time; you cannot exhaust your energies in one direction, and yet reserve them unimpaired for something else. If you go to bed late you cannot get up early.



Clothes do not make the man
It is what is behind the man -- that is, his character -- that really matters. On the other hand, this is contradicted by The Tailor Makes The Man and Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds.



Spare the rod and spoil the child
It does not improve a child's character if he is not punished when he has done wrong.



Don't make a rod for your own back
Don't make a stick with which you yourself may be beaten. In other words, don't do anything that may get you into trouble later on.