A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

strange see ADVERSITY makes strange bedfellows; POLITICS makes strange
bedfellows.

stranger see FACT is stranger than fiction; TRUTH is stranger than fiction.

straw see you cannot make BRICKS without straw; a DROWNING man will clutch at a
straw; it is the LAST straw that breaks the camel’s back.

STRAWS tell which way the wind blows

The phrase ‘a straw in the wind’, a sign of the prevailing opinion, action, etc., is also
found.

a 1654 J. SELDEN Table-Talk (1689) 31 Take a straw and throw it up into the Air,

you shall see by that which way the Wind is. .. More solid things do not shew the

Complexion of the times so well, as Ballads and Libels. 1799 COBBETT Porcupine’s

Works (1801) X. 161 ‘Straws’ (to make use of Callender’s old hackneyed proverb)..

‘served to show which way the wind blows.’ 1927 A. ADAMS Ranch on Beaver vii. As

straws tell which way the wind blows.. this day’s work gives us a clean line on these

company cattle. 1968 R. H. R. SMITHIES Shoplifter vii. You must remember that I was

present at the contretemps which occurred at your house two days ago. Straws show

which way the wind blows, Mrs. Pride! hints; omens

A STREAM cannot rise above its source

1663 S. TUKE Adventures of Five Hours (Prologue) He would be ever w’you, but

wants force; The Stream will rise no higher than the Source. 1732 T. FULLER

Gnomologia no. 4771 The Stream can never rise above the Spring-head. 1905 H. A.

VACHELL Hill 84 Clever chap. .. But one is reminded that a stream can’t rise higher than

its source. 1921 T. R. GLOVER Pilgrim 125 It is held that a stream cannot rise above its

source; but.. [a] river may have many tributaries, and one of them may change the

character of what we call the main stream. 1952 R. A. KNOX Hidden Stream iv. Because

after all the stream doesn’t rise higher than its source, and God, however we conceive

him, must be higher in the scale of being than anything he has created. beginnings and

endings

stream see also don’t CHANGE horses in mid-stream; when the LAST tree is cut down,..
and the last stream poisoned,.. you will realize that you cannot eat money.