“A person can be as sweet as honey or as heavy as steel.”
The saying is often used in a situation when a person becomes old and no one wants the person around any more. What it indicates is that when the person was young they were as sweet as honey, “everybody wanted them around”. Now that the person has become old they are considered a burden and no on wants them around anymore, hence they are as heavy as steel.
Quite pragmatic, ain’t it? Sad but true. I wonder how old people feel about this. To be wanted when in the prime of their life, yet to have backs turned on them when they get older. Tsk, tsk.
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“Koketsu ni irazunba koji o ezu.”
Literally, if you do not enter the tiger’s cave, you will not catch its cub, meaning: Nothing ventured, nothing gained
For the entrepreneurs, especially, if you don’t take risks, you don’t get profits. You see, that’s why the Japanese are so successful in their business. Hehe.
Source:
http://www.greekspider.com/greek_sayings/default.htm
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Japanese_proverbs
