- English translation
Some people were crafted like treasures, and others were wadded into balls and tossed aside.
- Literal wording
He created people and made them precious treasures, and He rolled people into balls and flung them away.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying holds that each person's lot was settled from the very beginning by an unnamed maker, understood as the Creator. Some people were shaped with special care and given happiness as part of their making. Others were carelessly rolled up and flung away, as though their fate hardly mattered.
In practice it explains unequal fortune as predestined rather than earned. It expresses a resigned, fatalistic view: luck and misery are built into who people are. Striving or deserving does little to change that outcome.
- When it is used
Use it when someone reflects on how unevenly fortune falls, especially when one person thrives without effort and another struggles despite trying. It suits resigned or wry commentary on fate, not lessons about effort. Aimed at a specific person, it can sound like a wounding verdict of worthlessness.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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