moni kakku päältä kaunis, vaan on silkkoa sisältä

Finnish

Etymology

From the 33rd poem in Kalevala, Finland's national epic:

Moni on kakku päältä kaunis,
kuorelta kovin sileä,
vaan on silkkoa sisässä,
akanoita alla kuoren.
Many a cake is beautiful on the surface,
smooth is its crust,
but there's only phloem inside,
husks under the crust.

An older form of the proverb is attested already in Henrik Florinus' list of proverbs from 1702:

Caunis cacku paͤaͤldaͤ naͤhden, acanainen alda cuoren; ei ſiunattu ſiſaͤldaͤ
A cake is beautiful from above, chaffy beneath the crust; not blessed on the inside

Proverb

moni kakku päältä kaunis, vaan on silkkoa sisältä

  1. all that glitters is not gold (sometimes things, plans, promises etc. that look good on the first sight turn out to be wretched)

Derived terms

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.