Timeline for Are there counterpart English expressions to Japanese proverb, "the nail that pops up is always hammered down?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 9, 2013 at 19:15 | comment | added | Carl Younger | It strange our parents teach us that the bigger you are, the harder you fall, while our governments teach us that some banks are too big to fail. - J Celente | |
| Jul 19, 2013 at 22:39 | comment | added | MetaEd | @LarsH Yes, it can refer literally to physically big people, and it is also used metaphorically to mean powerful or otherwise exceptional people. In that case the fall is metaphorical: it can mean a fall from grace or a fall from a position of power. | |
| Jul 19, 2013 at 20:15 | comment | added | LarsH | I always thought of "The bigger they come, the harder they fall" as referring to physically large people, who seemed intimidating in a fight. This saying was used to encourage the little guy not to be afraid of them. | |
| Jul 19, 2013 at 5:16 | comment | added | ruakh | @YoichiOishi: We have that concept in English, too: see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oak_and_the_Reed. | |
| Jul 19, 2013 at 4:14 | comment | added | Yoichi Oishi | Funny. It's exactly opposite to our “喬木は風に弱し-A tall tree is weak to a gale” (because it gets stronger wind pressure than shrubs). | |
| Jul 19, 2013 at 3:59 | history | answered | MetaEd | CC BY-SA 3.0 |