False. (Yet another reason to hate Shakespeare)
I can’t tell you how much I hate it when an illogical, inaccurate phrase becomes a common saying, or acts as a phrasal template for all sorts of things, as this one does. (And let’s not even go into that whole glisters/glistens/glitters thing, ok?)
- All men (women, people, cars, bloggers, little green men with pink polka-dots) are not equal.
- All trees are not oaks.
- and yes, All that glitters is not gold.
The fact is that some things that glitter are gold. Some trees are oaks. Some members of whatever set you cite in the first case will be equal in whatever way you are talking about, and as long as that is true, then it is simply logically false to state that the opposite is true.
If: ALL trees are NOT OAKS (that is, all members of the set of all trees are members of the set of things which are not oaks)
Then: NO trees are OAKS (that is, no members of the set of all trees are members of the set of all things which are oaks)
Simple logic dictates that the form of the phrase should be “Not all that glitters is gold.”
