Cruelty is a tyrant always attended by fear.
Meaning: Fear haunts the cruel because their victims will seek retribution when opportunity allows.
Origin: Recorded in A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, an undated collection published in London by Whittaker & Co. around 1880 and credited to Thomas Preston. Its earlier history hasn't been traced.
More proverbs about Perseverance
- What cannot be cured must be endured. — Accept hardships beyond your control rather than waste energy resisting the inevitable.
- Never venture out of your depth until you can swim. — Avoid situations beyond your capability until you've mastered the necessary skills.
- Desert and reward seldom keep company. — Virtue without recognition tests whether you act from integrity or merely for praise.
- One must sometimes hold a candle to the devil. — Pragmatic compromise with unsavory people or situations may be necessary to achieve impor…
- Diligence is the mother of good fortune. — Consistent hard work creates the opportunities that appear to others as mere luck or chan…
- He who would enjoy his friend's dinner should not look into the kitchen. — Willful ignorance of unpleasant details preserves pleasure in the final result.
From our idioms
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- straight from the horse's mouth — Information received directly from the original source, without intermediaries.
- thin the herd — To reduce the size of a group by removing members, typically the weakest or least product…