"(With) a grain of salt," in modern English, is an idiom which means to view something with skepticism, or to not take it literally.
Read more about Grain Of Salt: History, In Other Languages
Famous quotes containing the words Grain Of Salt, grain of salt, grain of, grain and/or salt:
“With a grain of salt.”
—Pliny The Elder (23–79)
“With a grain of salt.”
—Pliny The Elder (23–79)
“Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality.
Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself,
So the weary travelers may find repose.”
—Czeslaw Milosz (b. 1911)
“Whan that the firste cok hath crowe, anoon
Up rist this joly lovere Absolon,
And him arrayeth gay at point devis.
But first he cheweth grain and licoris,
To smellen sweete, er he hadde kembd his heer.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“It is terrible to die of thirst on the ocean. Do you have to salt your truth so heavily that it no longer—quenches thirst?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)