Proverbial Wisdom

Express the idea behind each of these proverbs using different words as much as you can.

181. Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, and poor;
Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.

John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1648-1721)

Essay on Poetry

182. He that will have cake out of the wheat, must tarry the grinding.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Troilus and Cressida (Pandarus), Act I, Scene I

183. Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Letter to his Son. 6th Nov., 1747

184. Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself has said,
This is my own, my native land ?
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand?

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Can. VI, I

185. When the stool’s rotten enough, no matter who sits on it.

George Eliot (1819-1880)

Scenes from Clerical Life, Amos Barton (Mr Hackit)

186. More liberty begets desire of more;
The hunger still increases with the store.

John Dryden (1631-1700)

The Hind and the Panther, Pt I, line 519