Some other bangers;
"Jack of all trades, master of none" ... "but ofttimes better than a master of one."
"Blood is thicker than water." "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the waters of the womb."
"Money is the root of all evil." "The love of money is the root of all evil."
there's also "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" which conservatives are oh so fond of saying
bootstraps are, well, straps on your boots. you cannot physically pull yourself up by them, and that's what the original phrase meant. "pulling oneself up by the bootstraps" is meant to be an impossible task
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness."
The second part really matters.
Some more:
"Birds of a feather flock together- until the cat comes." - The first part gets quoted a lot in a "find your people" kind of way, but the full quote was meant to be a warning about basing relationships on "feathers" (looks, surface details, etc) only.
"Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back." - The first part is often used like a warning against curiosity, but the full quote is meant to encourage it.
"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese." - The first part is often used to get people to do stuff first/fast/early, but the full saying is meant to impart that sometimes, not being the first can work out better.
"Rome wasn't built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour." - The first part is often quoted in a "cool it/relax/stop" type way, but the full quote is meant to encourage slow and steady progress.
"Great minds think alike, though fools seldom differ." - Just because it's an idea y'both had, doesn't make it a good one.
Hoo boy, there's a bunch of misinfo here.
I don't blame the people repeating these modified idioms. This is how language develops and changes, through repetition and sharing in a game of telephone. The problem is when the altered sayings are presented as the 'original' version, where almost all of the above are variations that date to the 20th and 21st century CE.
Bear in mind that this is working off of English versions of these sayings and thus English language sources:
Leaving aside Selfridge is one of many people credited with coining the phrase, the first one is an outright myth.
The expanding upon "jack of all trades" with "better than a master of one" is a post-millennial coining not found in older sources.
The "blood is thicker than water" one is dubious. I haven't been able to find any sources for it that date to earlier than the Nineties.
The 'money is the root of all evil' bit is the only one that is pretty much correct. It's from the Christian Bible, King James Version, 1 Timothy 6:10.
The bootstraps one is fairly solid. Dates to at least the 1830s, with the action of someone pulling/lifting themself by the bootstraps being presented as a comic absurdity.
The "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" one is based on an outright lie. The supposed source does not contain that phrasing or even a close resemblance to it.
"Birds of a feather" and variations upon it (usually something along the lines of 'birds of a kind') without the bit about the cat date to the 16th century and earlier, as seen in William Turner's anti-Catholic "The Rescuing of the Romish Fox" in the lines, "It is easy to know the cawse for as byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together / so the papistes will euer be to gether".
The one about curiosity killing the cat does seem to have some validity, with variations thereupon appearing in print in the 1910s, although variations without date earlier, such as O. Henry having written "Curiosity can do more things than kill a cat" in 1909. The phrase appears with "care" (in the sense of 'concern') instead of "curiosity" as "care'll kill a cat" in the 1598 play Every Man in His Humor.
"The second mouse gets the cheese" is most often attributed to Willie Nelson, though I can't find a citation for his coining of it on short notice. "The early bird catches the worm" on its own dates to at the very least the 17th century.
"But they were laying bricks every day" originated with author James Clear in early 2014 (pub date taken from page source). The phrase without modification dates back to before 1190, since it's a translation of an Old French phrase "Rome ne fu pas faite toute en un jour" (sic) published in Les Proverbes au Vilain in the late 12th century.
"Fools seldom differ" does not appear in older sources.
Again, I'm not calling out the people above! They were presented with these misquotes and modifications by seemingly authoritative sources, and in the era of ChatGPT and Google AI, there's going to be a lot of hokum and hogwash getting presented to very intelligent people (and dummies like me) as if it was the ultimate and only truth.
This is why we are encouraged to do research, this is why it's important to cite your sources! Because even if you repeat a falsehood with conviction, even if you genuinely believe it yourself, truth will out in the face of evidence.
Detective Conan, File 95, "The Great Detective Of The East Appears!?". Translation by 'Spimer' of 'Korn Scans' scanslation group.
