Japanese Proverbs- I

Proverbs, those tiny distilled bits of wisdom, are quite nifty. Each culture has its' own proverbs and predictably, these proverbs convey the sense of that culture. This is going to be a weekly feature where I pick up one proverb and study it in detail.

一利あれば、一害あり
いちりあれば、いちがいあり

This literally means "For every advantage, there is equally a disadvantage". "Everything has its pros and cons" sounds better. Or rather, nothing is troublefree! So you could slip this in when you are talking about economy, marriage, studying abroad, etc!! It probably works in all these cases.