See Also: FRIENDSHIP, FUTILITY

1. Advice after an evil is done is like medicine after death —Danish proverb

   It’s quite common to substitute the word’mischief for ‘evil.’

2. Advice is like kissing: it costs nothing and is a pleasant thing to do —Josh Billings
3. Advice is like snow; the softer it falls … the deeper it sinks into the mind —Samuel Taylor Coleridge
4. Advice, like water, takes the form of the vessel it is poured into —Punch, August 1, 1857
5. The advice of old age gives light without heat, like winter sun —Marquis de Luc de Clapiers Vauvenargues
6. Advice is like castor oil, easy enough to give but dreadful uneasy to take —Josh Billings
7. Good advice is like a tight glove; it fits the circumstances, and it does not fit other circumstances —Charles Reade
8. His (Ariel Sharon’s) advice on that subject (Lebanon 1984-1985) … was akin to a man with seven traffic accidents opening a driving school —Abba Eban, New York Times, February, 1986
9. It [excellent advice] is a good deal like giving a child a dictionary to learn a language with —Henry James
10. A proposal is like a flashlight. It’s completely useless in the spotlight, but in the shadows it can do lots of good —Professor Steven Carvell, Wall Street Journal, December 11, 1986

    Professor Carvell’s simile was specific to a proposal for investment research.

11. Telling a runner he can’t run … is a bit like being advised not to breathe —Thomas Rogers on runner Fred Lebow’s being so advised for medical reasons, New York Times, 1986
12. To heed bad advice is like eating poisoned candy —Anon
13. To listen to the advice of a treacherous friend, is like drinking poison from a golden cup —Demophilus

don’t let anyone sell you a wooden nutmeg This bit of advice to the unwary to be on the lookout for fraudulent sales schemes derives from the 19th-century practice of selling imitation nutmegs made of wood.

This practice was supposedly prevalent in Connecticut, “The Nutmeg State,” although whether the sellers were itinerant peddlers or natives of Connecticut is debatable.

don’t take any wooden nickels According to Wentworth and Flexner (Dictionary of American Slang), an Americanism equivalent to “Good-bye, take care, protect yourself from trouble.” A wooden nickel is a wooden disc or souvenir which costs a nickel but has no legal value. The exhortation may have originated as a reminder not to be duped into buying such a worthless thing. Popular in the early 1900s, don’t take any wooden nickels is less frequently heard today.

keep your breath to cool your porridge This Briticism is an oblique admonition to “mind your own business” or “practise what you preach.”

kitchen cabinet A group of unofficial, personal advisers to an elected official. The original kitchen cabinet consisted of three friends of President Andrew Jackson who met with him frequently for private political discussions. They reportedly entered by the back door (perhaps through the kitchen) so as to avoid observation and were believed to have had more influence than Jackson’s official Cabinet. Use of the expression dates from at least 1832.

reck one’s own rede To follow one’s own advice; to “practice what you preach.” Reck ‘heed, regard’ appears only in negative constructions. Rede ‘advice, counsel’ is now archaic and limited to poetical or dialectal use. This expression is found in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Today reck one’s own rede is met only in literary contexts.

the tune the old cow died of Advice instead of aid, words in lieu of alms. This expression alludes to the following old ballad:

Needless to say, the old cow died of hunger. Occasionally the tune the old cow died of is used to describe unmelodious or poorly played music.