In a house on fire
That is almost as silly
As fighting would be.
(Star, who is something of a Star Trek fan, once drew to my attention that the show presented as a Klingon proverb the saying ‘Only a fool fights in a burning house’, but he thought he had heard it elsewhere. I was able to tell him that yes, it was an our-world proverb, having myself encountered the same saying in both the Japanese and the Icelandic cultures. It would not surprise me if it turned up in other cultures as well.)
