Where bad's the best, naught must be the choice.
Meaning: When all options are flawed, refusing to participate entirely becomes the wisest decision.
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 Morality
- Better be alone than in bad company. — Solitude preserves your integrity better than compromising yourself through associations…
- He that cannot abide a bad market deserves not a good one. — Profiting from favorable conditions requires enduring the inevitable downturns with patie…
- Make the best of a bad bargain. — When stuck with an unfavorable deal, focus energy on maximizing what value remains rather…
- Barley straw's good fodder when the cow gives water. — When resources are scarce, even poor substitutes become valuable for survival.
- Better to be beaten than be in bad company. — Physical hardship endures briefly; corrupting influences from vice seep into character pe…
- Brag's a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. — Boasting accomplishes nothing; actually keeping what you have through persistence and rel…
From our untranslatable words
- Fremdschämen — The vicarious embarrassment you feel for someone who is doing something cringeworthy — ev…
- Drachenfutter — A peace-offering gift brought home to a partner after staying out too late or doing somet…
- Verschlimmbessern — To make something worse in a well-intentioned attempt to improve it.