- English translation
Grief, when it comes often enough, teaches a person to cry.
- Literal wording
Abundance of grief teaches weeping.
- Meaning and lesson
Sorrow that comes again and again shapes a person, so that crying stops being a rare event and becomes a familiar, almost practiced reaction. The proverb treats tears as something learned through long acquaintance with pain rather than as a single outburst.
The emphasis can also fall on surroundings: whoever lives amid constant mourning picks up its habits, showing how repeated exposure trains feeling and behavior.
- When it is used
Suitable when remarking that someone who has endured repeated sorrow, or who has long been surrounded by mourning, now weeps readily. It can sympathetically explain a tendency to tears, or more generally note that constant exposure to something builds the habit of responding to it.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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