The devil is in the details
Meaning: Small details can cause major problems.
Origin: It began as "God is in the details" — anything worth doing is worth doing thoroughly. That form is credited, without a firm source, to Gustave Flaubert, and the German art historian Aby Warburg used "Der liebe Gott steckt im Detail" as a seminar motto in 1925–26. The warning version, with the devil hiding in the details, appears in print by 1963.
Equivalents in French, Spanish, Japanese, and German
- French: Le diable est dans les détails (literally: The devil is in the details)
- Spanish: El diablo está en los detalles (literally: The devil is in the details)
- Japanese: 神は細部に宿る (Kami wa saibu ni yadoru) (literally: God resides in the details)
- German: Der Teufel steckt im Detail (literally: The devil lurks in the detail)
More proverbs about Wisdom
- All good things must come to an end — Nothing pleasant lasts forever.
- Half a loaf is better than none — Something is better than nothing.
- Don't reinvent the wheel — Don't waste effort on solved problems.
- Don't put the cart before the horse — Do things in the correct order.
- Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do — Sometimes unconventional paths lead to correct outcomes.
- Great minds think alike — Intelligent people often reach the same conclusions.
From our tongue twisters
- O rato roeu a roupa do rei de Roma; a rainha com raiva roeu o resto. — An unstoppable 'r' trill drill — every key word begins or ends with the Portuguese r.
- Um tigre, dois tigres, três tigres tristes triscam trigo num trigal. — A 'tr' cluster drill that adds a sad adjective to make the alliteration worse.
- O papa papava o papo do pipo; o pipo papava o papo do papa. — A perfectly palindromic 'p' construction that reverses meaning when you swap the nouns.