Every MAN cannot go to the price

Meaning & Analysis

Not everyone has the financial means to afford the cost of a desired item or service.

Insights

Inequality of Opportunity

The 'price' symbolizes the necessary qualifications, effort, or social standing required to achieve a certain goal or status. The proverb suggests that not everyone possesses the resources or capabilities to pursue every ambition.

Acceptance of Limitations

Highlights the inherent limitations and barriers that exist in life. It serves as a realistic reminder that certain aspirations or lifestyles are, by nature, inaccessible to the majority, cautioning against unrealistic expectations.

Exclusivity and Value

The proverb can be interpreted as a commentary on the nature of value itself. If everyone could afford the 'price,' the object or status would lose its distinction and desirability. Exclusivity is presented as an intrinsic component of value.

Socio-Economic Stratification

Reflects the rigid social and economic hierarchies of pre-modern societies, where access to goods, status, and opportunities was explicitly limited by one's birth or wealth. The 'price' was often not just monetary but also social.

Principle of Exclusivity

This proverb serves as a folk-economic expression of scarcity and value. The very existence of a 'price' that not all can meet is what gives certain goods, achievements, or social positions their perceived value and exclusivity.

Psychology of Limitation

Psychologically, the proverb can function as a mechanism for managing ambition and disappointment. By framing limitation as a universal condition rather than a personal failure, it encourages a pragmatic acceptance of one's circumstances.

Rhetorical Devices

Metaphor

The word 'price' serves as a powerful metaphor for the broader costs of ambition, including social, educational, and personal sacrifices required for advancement.

Universal Statement

The phrase 'Every MAN' creates a sweeping generalization that presents a social or economic condition as a universal, unchangeable law of nature, lending the statement an air of authority.

Understatement

The proverb's simple, direct phrasing delivers a complex social observation with stark finality, making its message both memorable and impactful.

inequalityambitionlimitationeconomicssocial-classrealism
Analyzed with gemini-2.5-pro on August 19, 2025

Transcription

Quotations

1639, CL., s.v. Difficultatis, p. 87.

Original Scan

Every MAN cannot go to the price - a scanned entry from Tilley's 1950 Dictionary of Proverbs.
Scan courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library.
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.

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Last updated: January 27, 2026