No bucks, no Buck Rogers
Meaning: Without money or resources, you cannot afford luxuries or escape difficult circumstances through technology or innovation.
Origin: A space-industry saying made famous by the 1983 film The Right Stuff, in which the Mercury astronauts adopt it as their motto — the line is not in Tom Wolfe's original book. Without funding, there is no spaceflight. Buck Rogers, the comic-strip space hero, stood for the future everyone wanted; the bucks were the money needed to build it.
More proverbs about Wisdom
- No guts, no glory — Without risk and courage, achievement remains impossible; safety guarantees nothing remar…
- Once a thief, always a thief — Criminal habits become ingrained character traits difficult to overcome through reformati…
- One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch — Corruption spreads contagiously; a single morally compromised person can undermine an ent…
- On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog — Online anonymity removes social accountability, allowing anyone to misrepresent themselve…
- Other days, other ways — Circumstances change, so rigid adherence to past methods becomes foolish; adapt your appr…
- Pitchers have ears — Small vessels amplify sound, so careless words spoken nearby may reach unintended listene…
From our untranslatable words
- Amae — The comfortable feeling of depending on another's goodwill — leaning into someone's indul…
- Weltschmerz — The weariness and sadness you feel when the world as it is falls painfully short of the w…
- Torschlusspanik — The anxious fear that time is running out — that the gates of opportunity, youth, or life…