Let every tub stand on its own bottom.
Meaning: Each person must support themselves financially and practically without depending on others' resources.
Origin: A tub that cannot stand on its own bottom falls over. The saying means everyone should be self-supporting and answer for their own affairs. It was already a common proverb when John Bunyan gave it to the complacent character Presumption in The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), who refuses Christian's help with "Every tub must stand upon its own bottom."
More proverbs about Wisdom
- Proportion your expenses to what you have, not to what you expect. — Spending based on current resources prevents financial ruin when anticipated income or ga…
- Experience is a dear school, but it is the only one we are apt to learn in. — Costly mistakes teach us what lectures cannot: wisdom requires personal suffering to beco…
- Better one eye than quite blind. — Partial knowledge or capability, however limited, surpasses complete deprivation.
- One may sooner fall than rise. — Damage spreads faster than repairs; decline requires less effort than recovery.
- Under water famine, under snow bread. — Hidden abundance often lies beneath apparent scarcity; adversity conceals resources invis…
- Fancy may bolt bran and think it flour. — Imagination can disguise inferior things as valuable when we fail to examine them closely.