Pick and choose, and take the worst.
The lass that has mony wooers aft wales [chooses] the warst.—Scotch.
Refuse a wife with one fault, and take one with two.—Welsh.
"He that has a choice has trouble" (Dutch).[572] "He that chooses takes the worst" (French).[573]
Of two evils choose the least.
Where bad is the best, naught must be the choice.
A traveller in America, inquiring his way, was told there were two roads, one long, and the other short, and that it mattered not which he took. Surprised at such a direction, he asked, "Can there be a doubt about the choice between the long and the short?" and the answer was, "Why, no matter which of the two you take, you will not have gone far in it before you will wish from the bottom of your heart that you had taken t'other."
"There's ne'er a best among them," as the fellow said of the fox cubs.
As good eat the devil as the broth he's boiled in.
Out of the fryingpan into the fire.
To escape from one evil and incur another as bad or worse is an idea expressed in many proverbial metaphors; e.g., "To come out of the rain under the spout" (German).[574] "Flying from the bull, I fell into the river" (Spanish).[575] "To break the constable's head and take refuge with the sheriff" (Spanish).[576] "To shun Charybdis and strike upon Scylla" is a well-known phrase, which almost everybody supposes to have been current among the ancients. It is not to be found, however, in any classical author, but appears for the first time in the Alexandriad of Philip Gaultier, a medieval Latin poet. In his fifth book he thus apostrophises Darius when flying from Alexander:—
"Nescis, heu! perdite, nescis
Quem fugias: hostes incurris dum fugis hostem;
Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim."
Go forward, and fall; go backward, and mar all.
"A precipice ahead; wolves behind" (Latin).[577] "To be between the hammer and the anvil" (French).[578]
You may go farther and fare worse.
To be between the devil and the deep sea. The one-eyed is a king in the land of the blind.
"A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by."
"Where there are no dogs the fox is a king" (Italian).[579]
They that be in hell think there is no other heaven.
It is good to have two strings to one's bow.
It is good riding at two anchors.
He is no fox that hath but one hole.
The mouse that has but one hole is soon caught. (Latin)[580]
Do not put all your eggs in one basket;
nor "too many of them under one hen" (Dutch).[581] "Hang not all upon one nail" (German),[582] nor risk your whole fortune upon one venture.
