- English translation
Don't take as a partner a man forever tending his pipe, or one whose belt is just a piece of string.
- Literal wording
Do not go into partnership with the man of the pipe bowl, nor with the one whose belt is a thread.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying advises against joining forces with someone whose attention is always claimed by something else. The pipe smoker keeps stopping to fill and tend his tobacco bowl, and the man with a thread for a belt keeps halting to retie or twist a new cord when it snaps. Either way, the joint work falls behind.
More broadly, it cautions about choosing partners: the thread belt pictures constant mending and distraction, not poverty, and the warning reaches anyone diverted from the shared task. Someone committed in name but absorbed by side habits or small repairs leaves the real burden to you. Choose a collaborator who gives steady, undivided effort.
- When it is used
Use it when weighing a partner, coworker, or hired hand whose habits or ever-failing gear keep pulling them from the shared job. The images are illustrations, not jabs at smokers or the poor. It suits informal advice, though the pipe image may need explaining.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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