salt of the earth, the

Idioms  

1. The best or noblest of their kind, as in These campers are the salt of the earth. This metaphoric term was used by Jesus for those who were persecuted for being loyal to him (Matthew 5:13) and has been repeated ever since.

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Example Sentences

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salt of the earth, the

Jones thinks borrowers are the salt of the earth, the optimists, the builders, the men who take chances and thus make the U.S.

From Time Magazine Archive

His disciples are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and a city set on a hill.

From Companion to the Bible by E. P. (Elijah Porter) Barrows

They are the salt of the earth, the oxygen in the moral atmosphere.

From The Bishop's Secret by Fergus Hume

They recoiled with the utmost abhorrence from the pollutions of the age, and became indeed "the salt of the earth," the sole moral antiseptic to prevent the total disintegration of society.

From Valeria The Martyr of the Catacombs by William Henry Withrow

Princes, bishops, generals, once the salt of the earth, the mightiest of men, and now lumped carelessly together as thirty-eight Stuarts. 

From A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle