There is a local version of this proverb:—
It is an ill wind that blows no good to Cornwall.
On the rock-bound coasts of that shire almost any wind brought gain to the wreckers. We have seen it somewhere alleged that the general proverb grew out of the local one; but this is certainly not the fact, for the former exists in other languages. Its Italian equivalent[242] agrees closely with it in form as well as in spirit. The French say, "Misfortune is good for something;"[243] the Spaniards, "There is no ill but comes for good;"[244] and, "I broke my leg, perhaps for my good."[245]
Our worst misfortunes are those that never befall us.
"Never give way to melancholy: nothing encroaches more. I fight vigorously. One great remedy is to take short views of life. Are you happy now? Are you likely to remain so till this evening? or next week? or next month? or next year? Then why destroy present happiness by a distant misery which may never come at all, or you may never live to see? For every substantial grief has twenty shadows, and most of them shadows of your own making."—Sydney Smith.
Ye're fleyed [frightened] o' the day ye ne'er saw.—Scotch.
You cry out before you are hurt.
Never yowl till you're hit.—Ulster.
Let your trouble tarry till its own day comes.
Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
In French, "À chaque jour suffit sa peine," words which were frequently in Napoleon's mouth at St. Helena. An Eastern proverb says, "He is miserable once who feels it, but twice who fears it before it comes."
When bale is highest, boot is nighest.
"Bale" is obsolete as a substantive, but retains a place in current English as the root of the adjective "baleful." The proverb means that
When the night's darkest the day's nearest.
The darkest hour is that before dawn.
When things come to the worst they'll mend.