You can’t paint the Mona Lisa with crayons.
Kind of related to yours, “You’re putting lipstick on a pig”
巧妇难为无米之炊 – “even the cleverest house wife cannot cook without rice”.
Polish - „you can’t make a whip out of shit” „z gówna bicza nie ukręcisz”
“Even if you give an ape a ring, it’ll remain an ugly thing.” -Netherlands.
A golden ring specifically
You can hope in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
You can’t pick a naked man’s pocket.
That’s nature’s pocket.
“You can’t expect pears out of an elm tree” or “No le pidas peras al olmo”
Isn’t that more like “you can’t ask an elm tree for pears?”
And even more literally “don’t ask for pears to the elm?”
German for “like father, like son” is “the apple doesn’t fall far off the tree trunk”. But many people nowadays use “the apple doesn’t fall far off the pear tree”, which is a variant that I think originally was supposed to suggest illegitimate fatherhood.
That’s interesting, because “the apple doesn’t/didn’t fall far from the tree” is a known Anglophonic saying that basically means that a child turned out a lot like a parent (gender not necessarily specified). I wonder if one is a calque of the other.
The above poster isnt really correct. We have an actual saying that is the literal translation: "Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm ". And it means exactly what you suggest, a child being very much like one of their parents in one way or another.
Like father, like son exists as well, “Wie der Vater so der Sohn”.
