to put your nose to the grindstone :

It means that you work very hard for a long time.

close to my heart :

If something is close to your heart, it means that it is very important to you.

to be the apple of sby's eye :

to be loved very much by someone. (gözbebeği olmak)

"Ben was always the apple of his father's eye."

to ring hollow :

sound hollow, sound insincere, sound dishonest (samiyetsiz görünmek /gelmek)

“Bush's new Iraq policy rings hollow.”

to bite the dust :

to die

to bite the bullet :

to start to deal with an unpleasant situation which cannot be avoided.

“I wasn't happy with the way my career was going so i decided to bite the bullet and look for another job.”

the lesser evil / the lesser of two evils :

ehvenişer, iki kötü seçenekten daha iyi olanı, kötünün iyisi

to throw out the baby with the bathwater:

To reject something in its entirety without discriminating between what is bad and what is good or would be useful to retain.

"Once it is understood that his project is plagiarized the committee threw out the baby with the bathwater."