"(With) a grain of salt," in modern English, is an idiom which means to view something with skepticism, or to not take it literally.
Read more about Grain Of Salt: History, In Other Languages
Famous quotes containing the words grain of salt, grain and/or salt:
“With a grain of salt.”
—Pliny The Elder (23–79)
“If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork. What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements are connected by an and and not by a but.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)