Are you looking or making?

Some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful. Hazrat Inayat Khan

Would you believe I think this is one of the most beautiful places in the world? Oh sure it has it's ugly spots, it has its dark places, it has its grief but it also has great beauty. Why in the world do I think that? Why do I look at this and long to be there? Because some of the people who live in this slum in East Africa (Mathare Valley, Kenya) have made this place beautiful. They have walked in the dark places, they have touched the ugly spots, they have grieved with the sad and they have introduced beauty to the inhabitants of this place. They looked for a beautiful place in this valley and couldn't find it so instead of moving on they began to introduce beauty. They didn't give up on this place or it's people, they worked - they are still working! - to bring beauty and make it beautiful.

Can't find the beautiful place? How about introducing beauty to the place you are standing in now? Don't go searching for beautiful elsewhere, make the place you are in beautiful!

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.

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