I like quotes like these because I find that quotes that manage to rhyme in tandem with the message given usually are correct in some fashion. Maybe not 100% correct, but damn near it more often than those who are not.

It works also in Italian and probably in Dutch, French, Swedish, Portuguese and Catalanl; the root is from Latin praesentāre (“to show”), common to all these languages (and others).

It has very profound meaning, and always living in the now is a central tenet of Buddhist philosophy.

>There is basis, yesterday did in fact happen in the past and tomorrow can not be said with certainty.

>There are many phrases in many languages that don't have translations to others or may mean something different. See the phrase "lost in translation". Even something as little as "no worries" without translation can still be lost in translation culture.

> They are completely devoid of any basis.

No pal, that's just you and your inability to accept that you may not know everything there is to know, and so you cannot accept that these play on words may carry wisdom in them that you are not aware of yet, or just haven't quite cognized.

And pal... Duality is in almost nearly everything. It's not language specific. It's universe specific. In our reality, there is generally almost always an equal and opposite to everything. If you don't know what somethings equal or opposite is yet, you just have yet to find it. This seems to be true regardless of whoever argues, because all it takes is time to find that proof.

Even Time has its own equal and opposite. Space. Through time you travel when moving through space, but in space you can travel through time as well by not moving at all...

So yeah, it's not even a case of you being too literal. You are just being obtuse or ignorant. Maybe even arrogant. But not too literal.

An example that comes to mind is the English "to be" working for both essence and state. In Portuguese we have different verbs, so we have the sentence "ele não é assim, ele está assim" which conveys the message that whatever he is going through right now, it doesn't define who he is deep down inside. But a literal translation just becomes the nonsensical "he isn't like that, he is like that".

I was trying to explain to a foreigner when to use "ser" or "estar" when translating "to be" and I tried to explain that one conveys essence and the other state, but that didn't seem to clarify things in his mind. He just kept saying it was all arbitrary which frankly doesn't make much sense in my head.

So I wonder if this linguistical difference provokes dramatical differences in inner thinking and culture as well. For instance, does the message of the aforementioned aphorism still works in English, I just have to find a better translation? Or do English natives will naturally have a stronger sense of a person being tainted by their actions?

You're not entirely wrong, a catchy or pithy enough saying tends to gain traction among pseudo-intellectuals just by virtue of a clever turn of phrase. It's like all of the stupid analogies that they make in episodes of TNG whenever they're trying to explain a difficult technological concept.

Eg "Adversity is a good thing. Kites rise against, not with, the wind". Congratulations you managed to find a physical world corollary that ultimately has no relationship to what it's being compared to.