White silver draws black lines.
Meaning: Silver's brilliance requires contrast; purity and darkness define each other's value.
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 Wisdom
- Don't wake a sleeping dog. — Disturbing a calm situation risks provoking unnecessary anger or conflict.
- Small things affect light minds. — Trivial matters preoccupy the intellectually shallow while serious thinkers remain focuse…
- Speculation completes what extravagance began. — Unfounded assumptions compound the damage already caused by reckless spending.
- He would split a hair. — Obsessive attention to trivial distinctions wastes effort on meaningless differences.
- Stolen kisses are sweet. — Illicit affection tastes delicious precisely because secrecy and danger make it thrilling…
- Store is no sore. — Abundance acquired through prudent saving prevents the pain of future scarcity and want.
From our tongue twisters
- The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick. — Believed by Guinness to be among the hardest in English — 'six/sick/sheikh/sheep' blur in…
- خالد خلّى خلال خاله في الخلاء. (Khālid khallā khalāl khālih fī al-khalāʾ.) — A rapid-fire 'kh' (خ) drill — the throaty fricative that non-Arabic speakers find uniquel…
- غاب الغيم وغابت غابة الغاب. (Ghāb al-ghaym wa ghābat ghābat al-ghāb.) — An unbroken sequence of 'gh' (غ) — a voiced uvular fricative that drills the back of the…