Happy is the man that has a hobby.
Meaning: Pursuing activities purely for pleasure provides fulfillment and emotional wellbeing beyond work or obligation.
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 Human Nature
- Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. — Prolonged unfulfilled expectations erode emotional resilience and breed despair rather th…
- If it were not for hope, the heart would break. — Despair without possibility of improvement destroys the human spirit; hope sustains us th…
- A hungry horse makes a clean manger. — A desperate situation compels thorough action where comfort permits negligence.
- A hungry man, an angry man. — Physical deprivation erodes patience and civility, making irritability inevitable.
- In the husband wisdom, in the wife gentleness. — Complementary virtues in partnership: husbands provide rational guidance while wives offe…
- A young man idle, an old man needy. — Neglecting work in youth ensures poverty and hardship in old age.
From our tongue twisters
- Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter. — A 'b / t / tt' plosive drill that bounces between Betty, butter, and bitter.
- Бабин біб розцвів у дощ, буде бабі біб у борщ. (Babyn bib roztsviv u doshch, bude babi bib u borshch.) — A bilabial 'b / bib / bor' drill that ends in a very Slavic splash of borscht.
- She sells seashells by the seashore. — The definitive 's' versus 'sh' alternation — the tongue has to switch place of articulati…