First deserve and then desire.
Meaning: Merit earned precedes rightful ambition; establish capability before claiming reward.
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 Wisdom
- Desires are nourished by delays. — Postponing what you want intensifies your craving rather than diminishing it.
- The first dish pleaseth all. — Initial offerings gain acceptance because people haven't yet formed judgments or grown we…
- Dogs bark before they bite. — Aggression is usually preceded by warning signs if you pay attention to them.
- Do well, and have well. — Virtuous actions naturally produce good outcomes; integrity yields its own rewards.
- What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals. — Alcohol dissolves social filters, exposing true thoughts and feelings people consciously…
- Better be envied than pitied. — Living with others' jealousy over your success beats enduring their sympathy for your fai…
From our tongue twisters
- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? — A 'w/ch/ck' drill that accelerates comically — and nobody really knows the answer.
- The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick. — Believed by Guinness to be among the hardest in English — 'six/sick/sheikh/sheep' blur in…
- خالد خلّى خلال خاله في الخلاء. (Khālid khallā khalāl khālih fī al-khalāʾ.) — A rapid-fire 'kh' (خ) drill — the throaty fricative that non-Arabic speakers find uniquel…