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

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 Orr, Sutherland, Mrs.

I plough in water, build on sand, and write on air.

From The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch by Campbell, Thomas

In Ireland we must build on trust, or we build on sand.

From The Framework of Home Rule by Childers, Erskine

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 Cripps, Arthur Shearly

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

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