- English translation
Everyone is out hunting scraps for his own cat.
- Literal wording
Everyone is searching, for his cat, for a scrap of throwaway meat.
- Meaning and lesson
The image is of a person scouring around for cheap, low-grade meat scraps, the kind tossed to cats and dogs, to feed a household cat. Each person is pictured as hunting for the small thing that matters to their own little dependent, and no one else's.
Applied to people, the saying observes that everyone is occupied with their own interests and goes after whatever concerns them personally. It describes this self-interest as a plain fact rather than as a harsh accusation.
- When it is used
Fits moments when someone notes, without necessarily condemning anyone, that each person is busy pursuing a personal concern or advantage, for example when people at a gathering are each angling for their own benefit, or to explain why someone shows little interest in another's affairs.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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