What does "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig" mean? [closed]
It's a quote by Robert Heinlein. I'm curious to hear its deeper meaning.
Here is the entry for the Heinlein quotation in The Yale Dictionary of Modern Proverbs (2012), giving the context for the quotation:
Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time, and it annoys the pig.
1973 Robert A Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons) 51: "...[A] fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig."
In context, the point seems to be that it is fruitless to try to make someone what he or she cannot be. In part, the quotation is dismissive: After all, it starts by making the subject of the attempted improvement (or protection) a fool. But in part, there is also a degree of sympathy for the person who is supposedly being improved but in a way totally unnatural to his or her own talents and inclinations. A platypus can't be taught to whistle—whether or not it is too stupid to learn how—because its mouth isn't designed to form a shape necessary to produce musical notes.
- Never try to teach a pig to sing. I wastes your time and it annoys the pig.
Some people are either unable or unwilling to learn. Attempting to instruct such people is waste of time, in spite of your best intentions.
- Never try to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
Entering into an argument with someone who mainly employs diatribe as a debating tactic makes you angry and the other guy (in a sense) happy, without settling anything.
- Putting lipstick on a pig
Spending time "prettying up" something that is inherently ugly (if you're not another pig). (Usually regarded as a wasted effort.)
- You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
Trying to make something useful or artful by starting with something worthless is often a wasted effort. (But note that I've seen hints that this saying historically has sometimes had an anti-semitic twist to it.) (Also note that there are artists who have made a career of creating art from trash, so the expression should not be interpreted too literally.)