“A good apology is like antibiotic, a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound.”
Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture
The Last Lecture (2008)
"The Salt of the Earth"
Source: The Harsh Voice: Four Short Novels (1935)
“A good apology is like antibiotic, a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound.”
Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture
The Last Lecture (2008)
Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist
Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, Police Dictatorships
Context: From 1936 to 1939 more than 1.2 million Party members, half of the total membership, were arrested. Only fifty thousand regained freedom; the others were tortured during interrogation or were shot (six hundred thousand) or died in camps. Only in isolated cases were the rehabilitated allowed to assume responsible posts; even fewer were permitted to take part in the investigation of crimes of which they had been witnesses or victims.
We are often told lately not to "rub salt into wounds." This is usually being said by people who suffered no wounds. Actually only the most meticulous analysis of the past and of its consequences will now enable us to wash off the blood and dirt that befouled our banner.
“Salt. Wound. Together at last.”
Maureen Johnson book 13 Little Blue Envelopes
Source: 13 Little Blue Envelopes
“I don't want to drop salt on the wound, as it already hurts.”
Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine
Speaking of the proposed increases of utility prices
Source: [Янукович взялся за старое, хоть и не хочет “капать соль на рану”, http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2009/05/28/4487095/, 2022-06-12, Украинская правда, ru, 2009-05-28]
Allen W. Wood (1942) academic
Kantian Ethics (2008)
Françoise Sagan book Dans un mois, dans un an
Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)
“If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter.”
Terry Pratchett book Moving Pictures
Source: Moving Pictures
“With a grain of salt.”
Cum grano salis.
Pliny the Elder book Natural History
Book XXIII, sec. 8.
Naturalis Historia
Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer
As quoted in Reader's Digest (April 1964)
Variant: I know a cure for everything. Salt water … in one form or another, sweat, tears or the salt sea.
Variant: The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.