Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
Leo RostenThe writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that, perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
Leo Rosten