Meaning & Analysis
Deliberately ignore or overlook minor mistakes or shortcomings.
Insights
Tolerance and Mercy
The proverb encourages leniency toward minor errors, recognizing that everyone has faults and that a harmonious community or relationship depends on a certain degree of mutual forbearance.
Pragmatic Wisdom
It reflects the practical understanding that not every fault is worth correcting; some should be overlooked for the sake of peace, efficiency, or the greater good.
Self-Awareness
By advising us to wink at others’ small faults, the proverb indirectly prompts us to acknowledge our own greater failings, fostering humility and discouraging harsh judgment.
Historical Symbolism
The act of 'winking' as symbolic blindness or silent acquiescence appears in many early modern sources. The 1721 and 1738 citations explicitly tie this proverb to the awareness of one’s own flaws, while earlier examples frame it as social or parental wisdom.
Cultural and Literary Resonance
The proverb is echoed in works by Shakespeare and others, often highlighting the risks and virtues of selective blindness. It relates closely to similar sayings like 'to look through one's fingers,' underscoring a cross-cultural ideal of merciful discretion.
Psychological Dimensions
It recognizes the psychological value of restraint—suppressing the urge to criticize fosters better relationships, reduces conflict, and supports emotional well-being for both self and others.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The phrase 'wink at' metaphorically transforms a physical gesture into a statement about conscious choice, softening the act of overlooking with a playful image.
Ellipsis
Omitting the subject (who should wink) makes the advice broadly applicable, universalizing its message.
Antithesis
Implied contrast between small and great faults (as in the Shakespeare citation), emphasizing the relative unimportance of the minor and the wisdom of proportionate response.
Transcription
Quotations
Some light faults let them dissemble as though they knewe them not, and seeing them let them not seeme to see them.
Yet loue that couers multitude of sins, Makes loue in parents winke at childrens faults.
Therefore at these and such like faults, we should winke for the time.
Suspend thy judgement, wink at small faults, or to be silent at least.
Wink at small Faults, for you have great ones your self.
Wink at small faults—remember thou hast great ones.
Shakespeare Citations
I, for winking at your discords . . Have lost a brace of kinsmen.
If little faults . . Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye When capital crimes . . Appear before us?
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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