Qui paye ses dettes s'enrichit
Meaning: Settling what you owe leaves you better off than owing it.
Language: French
Literally: He who pays his debts grows richer
Category: Daily Life
Origin: A proverb of practical bourgeois morality: the debt is a claim on future earnings, so clearing it converts an obligation into ownership. It is often quoted ruefully by the person doing the paying.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Faire son deuil de quelque chose — To accept that something is lost and give up on it.
- Jeter son dévolu sur quelque chose — To settle firmly on something one intends to have.
- À Dieu ne plaise — God forbid.
- Dieu reconnaîtra les siens — Act without discriminating and let a higher authority sort out the innocent.
- Mon petit doigt m'a dit — I know something you did not expect me to know.
- Dorer la pilule — To make an unpleasant fact easier to accept by dressing it up.
More French idioms
- Qui dort dîne — Sleep takes the place of a meal you cannot afford.
- Se la couler douce — To take life very easy indeed.
- Des mesures draconiennes — Punishingly severe rules.
- Péter une durite — To lose one's temper completely.
- À l'eau de rose — Insipidly sentimental, especially of fiction.
- L'échapper belle — To have a narrow escape.
From our tongue twisters
- Dans ta tente ta tante t'attend. — A gentle 'ta / ten / tan / t'' warm-up that sounds faster than it reads.
- Seize chaises sèches sur seize arches sèches. — A relentless collision of 'sei', 'sèch', and 's' — the tongue can't find traction.
- Un beau ver vert dans un verre vert verra un ver vert. — Ver (worm), vert (green), and verre (glass) are near-homophones — distinguishing them at…
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