Meaning & Analysis
The process of blocking a body of water and then bailing it out is a guaranteed, foolproof method for catching fish, as it leaves them with no avenue of escape.
Insights
Certainty Over Chance
Advocates for choosing a slow, laborious method that guarantees success over a faster, easier approach that involves risk and uncertainty.
Meticulous Preparation
Symbolizes the value of exhaustive preparation and environmental control to eliminate variables and ensure a desired outcome.
Effort and Reward
Illustrates that guaranteed success is often the direct result of intense, diligent labor, championing hard work as the surest path to achieving a goal.
Pragmatic Folk Wisdom
Rooted in the practical realities of subsistence, this proverb reflects a pre-industrial mindset where a guaranteed, albeit small, gain was preferable to a riskier but potentially larger one.
Economic Strategy
Serves as a timeless analogy for risk management in business or finance, favoring slow, steady, and certain returns over volatile, high-risk ventures.
Psychology of Control
The proverb speaks to a deep-seated human desire to eliminate uncertainty. It champions a strategic, controlling mindset that minimizes chance, contrasting with a reliance on luck or fortune.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
"Fishing" serves as a metaphor for any goal or acquisition, while "damming and laving" represents a strategy of absolute, effort-intensive control.
Declarative Tone
The proverb's structure as a simple, confident assertion ("is sure fishing") lends it an air of irrefutable, time-tested wisdom.
Process-Oriented Language
The use of gerunds ("damming," "laving," "fishing") emphasizes the active, laborious process required to achieve a certain outcome.
Transcription
Quotations
Damming and loving [for laving] is sure Fishing.
An Advice to prefer a sure Gain, though small, to the Prospect of a greater with Uncertainty.
Annotations
- drawing the water from a pond
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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