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German – Wenn Schweine fliegen können! is identical with the English saying "when pigs fly", although the older proverb Wenn Schweine Flügel hätten, wäre alles möglich ("if pigs had wings, everything would be possible") is in more common use, often modified on the second part to something impossible, like "if pigs had wings, even your ...
The phrase occurs with the clauses reversed in John Heywood's A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue from 1546, as "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?". [8] [9] In John Davies's Scourge of Folly of 1611, the same order is used, as "A man cannot eat his cake and haue it stil." [10]
The misquoted phrase, however, is commonly used to mock the dogmatic beliefs of the religious (see fideism). This phrase is commonly shortened to credo quia absurdum, and is also sometimes rendered credo quia impossibile est (I believe it because it is impossible) or, as Darwin used it in his autobiography, credo quia incredibile. credo ut ...
The Libersign, a political emblem of the U.S. Libertarian Party during the 1970s, features an arrow diagonally crossing the letters "TANSTAAFL." "No such thing as a free lunch" (alternatively, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch", "There is no such thing as a free lunch" or other variants, sometimes called Crane's law [1]) is a popular adage communicating the idea that it is impossible ...
Hobson's choice is one between something or nothing. John Stuart Mill, in his book Considerations on Representative Government, refers to Hobson's choice: When the individuals composing the majority would no longer be reduced to Hobson's choice, of either voting for the person brought forward by their local leaders, or not voting at all. [6]
Since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014, one Russian phrase has haunted me. It translates to “They [Ukrainians] crucified a little boy wearing nothing but his underwear.” It sounds ...
The phrase "American dream," everyone knows it. I've heard it since I was 10 years old. But I think in this movie, we can see that there is no true American dream because there is no one dream for ...
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below).