Could someone please explain me this; 都說仗義每多屠狗輩，負心多是讀書人

[whatistreasure]

How can I convert it to a proper English sentence? Thanks in advance

[Jim]

Your rough-and-ready, lowly types are more likely to do the right thing, it's the clever people who let you down. 

 

More literally, it says people who did one of the most despised jobs in past times, slaughtering dogs, were more often going to follow the code of righteousness, yi, living up to your word etc, whereas scholars would often not do what they promised.

 

 

[陳德聰]

It's from a 對聯

 

上

仗義每多屠狗輩

 

下

負心多是讀書人

 

But when you have the 都說 at the front it could be like "they say: 'blah blah blah blah' " with an implication that either what they say is right, more like "you know what they say..." OR it could be the opposite, with an implication that "they said it would be like this but it turned out to be lies!"