“Don’t judge a book by its cover” or “No pain, no gain.” Others have an opposite proverb that’s similarly common and reasonable.
“If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck” is likely an opposite for the first, and “The best things in life are free” is at least plausibly counter to the ladder.
Some proverbs are actually autoantonyms, or at least have come to mean the opposite of the original intent. For example, “Blood is thicker than water” nowadays means that the deepest bonds we form are family-related-by-blood. But I’ve read that originally the saying was “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” aka Christians should feel deeper bonds to other Christians than to their own siblings in cases where the two conflict.
“If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck” is likely an opposite for the first, and “The best things in life are free” is at least plausibly counter to the ladder.
See also: https://www.wired.com/2013/04/zizek-on-proverbs/#:~:text=%22The%20tautological%20emptiness%20of%20a,the%20inherent%20stupidity%20of%20proverbs.
Some proverbs are actually autoantonyms, or at least have come to mean the opposite of the original intent. For example, “Blood is thicker than water” nowadays means that the deepest bonds we form are family-related-by-blood. But I’ve read that originally the saying was “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” aka Christians should feel deeper bonds to other Christians than to their own siblings in cases where the two conflict.
Thanks for the correction, looks like my whole last paragraph is wrong. Whoops!