Word: proverb
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...BEFORE THE VICE-PRESIdential debate, DAN QUAYLE explained what he called the essence of the Republican campaign. "If you give a person a fish," he said, "they'll fish for a day. But if you train a person to fish, they'll fish for a lifetime." Besides misquoting the proverb (it's ". . . feed him for a day" and ". . . feed him for a lifetime"), Quayle was stealing a page from an unlikely book: Democrat Michael Dukakis recited the lines often during his 1988 campaign. Not to worry. The saying has been a favorite with orators since the ancient Chinese...
This picture alone can underscore the idea of the misunderstanding of Columbus' arrival in the Americas. When Columbus arrived on Hispano in 1492 there were people there to greet him. How could he discover a land that was already inhabited? This is a perfect example of the African proverb, until the lions has historians, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter...
...weeks ago, a United Nations-led peace delegation brokered a cease-fire -- at least the third since September -- signed by both Ali Mahdi and Aidid. But the war is far from over. Somalians have a familiar proverb -- "I and Somalia against the world. I and my clan against Somalia. I and my family against the clan. I and my brother against the family. I against my brother" -- and they seem determined to fight their way to the very last line...
...republics refused to attend. The Soviet President huddled with army commanders to appeal for military support a day before Yeltsin made a comparable pitch to a similar group of officers. Some generals interviewed on British television found Yeltsin more impressive, and subordinate officers voiced Russian variations of the Western proverb that he who pays the piper calls the tune. That can only mean Yeltsin: the Gorbachev government is flat broke and has only those funds that Yeltsin's Russian Federation doles...
...forces burned down a central market in Port-au-Prince, Aristide was there to excoriate the perpetrators and to raise money to rebuild the place. When one military dictator after another came to power promising democracy down the road, Aristide dismissed them, one after another, with an ironic Creole proverb and a blistering sermon. He never gave the least philosophical quarter to those he perceived as "roadblocks to the liberation of the Haitian people...