"(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, grain and/or salt:
“With a grain of salt.”
—Pliny The Elder (23–79)
“The laying of fish on the embers,
the taste of the fish,
the feel of the texture of bread,
the round and the half-loaf,
the grain of a petal,
the rain-bow and the rain.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is a grand thing to rise in the world. The ambition to do so is the very salt of the earth. It is the parent of all enterprise, and the cause of all improvement.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)