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

See Examples For:

build on sand

To build on selfishness is to build on sand.

From Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 by Mary Baker Eddy

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

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

From The Framework of Home Rule by Erskine Childers

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

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

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