Zeal without knowledge is frenzy.
Meaning: Passionate effort without understanding produces destructive chaos rather than meaningful progress.
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
- Two heads are better than one — Collaboration and diverse perspectives lead to better solutions.
- The grass is always greener on the other side — What others have always seems better than what you have.
- A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush — It's better to have something certain now than to risk it for something uncertain in the…
- Every cloud has a silver lining — There is always something positive in every difficult situation.
- Look before you leap — Think carefully before acting.
- A stitch in time saves nine — Fixing a problem early prevents bigger issues later.
From our tongue twisters
- 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.
- На дворе трава, на траве дрова. (Na dvore trava, na trave drova.) — A short but nasty 'tr/dr' blend — the consonant clusters that trip up every learner of Ru…
- Шла Саша по шоссе и сосала сушку. (Shla Sasha po shosse i sosala sushku.) — A merciless 'sh/s/ss' collision — Sasha walking, sucking, and all those sibilants.