build on sand

Idioms  

1. Use an unstable foundation, as in If you buy nothing but high-risk stocks, your portfolio will be built on sand. This metaphor appears in the New Testament, where Jesus likens those who do not heed his sayings to a foolish man who builds his house on sand, which then is washed away by rain, flood, and wind (Matthew 7:24–27). [c. 1600]

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Example Sentences

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build on sand

If you falter, or fail to fulfil this Golden Rule, though you should build to the heavens, you would build on sand.

From Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 by Mary Baker Eddy

To build on selfishness is to build on sand.

From Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 by Mary Baker Eddy

He sees that the deepest truth can only build on sand, though itself is stationed on a rock; and can only assert its substance in the often changing forms of error.

From A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) by Mrs. Sutherland Orr

To use them for a foundation is to build on sand.

From With God in the World A Series of Papers by Charles H. Brent

Very primitive, or why did they build on sand when, six inches deeper, they might have founded on bed-rock?

From Cinderella in the South Twenty-Five South African Tales by Arthur Shearly Cripps