Famous Proverbs

1] If you always say ‘No’, you’ll never get married

2] Many words, many buffets

3] Wife and Children are bills of charges

4] Three helping one another, bear the burthen of six

5] No land without stones, or meat without bones

6] Follow love and it will flee thee; flee love and it will follow thee

7] He that has a good memory, gives few alms

8] Safety lies in the middle course

9] Don’t bargain for fish which are still in the water

10] A man with no hands is given a ring.

11] Better late than never

12] One barber shaves another gratis

13] Love is sweet torment

14] The quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love

15] Blessings brighten as they take their flight

16] A good tongue is a good weapon

17] He who sits chatting about nothing loses his candle

18] A true friend is forever a friend

19] Brute strength without reason falls of its own weight

20] Don’t cut the bough you are standing on

21] Sickness shows us what we are

22] It is a sorry flock where the ewe bears the bell

23] He that brings good news, knocks hard

24] The hasty leaps over his opportunities

25] Error cannot be defended but by error

26] Give a loan and buy quarrel

27] Ill news comes unsent for.

28] He who lives with cats will get a taste for mice

29] From hearing, comes wisdom; from speaking, repentance

30] What’s the good of thatching someone else’s roof?

31] Talk of an angel and you’ll hear the fluttering of his wings

32] Pursuits become habits

33] Past cure, past care

34] Better be born lucky than wise.

35] Parents are patterns

36] Opportunity makes the thief

37] A gift in hand is better than two promises.

38] It is ill jesting with edged tools

39] Don’t cry for the moon

40] When the word is out it belongs to another

41] He that makes himself a sheep, shall be eaten by the wolf

42] Youth will have its course.

43] Does sound come from an unstruck drum?

44] Better are small fish than an empty dish

45] A successful man is seldom at ease; a life of ease does not breed success

46] Let like mate with like

47] Health is great riches

48] He that will steal an egg, will steal an ox

49] Might overcome right.

50] You see a man’s face but not his heart.

51] No man is indispensable

52] Those who sell dog-meat often display a lamb’s head

53] Human blood is all of a colour

54] To take revenge is often to sacrifice oneself

55] Wise men learn by other men’s harms (or mistakes), fools, by their own

56] All griefs with bread are less

57] There is a great difference between words and deeds

58] Second thoughts are best

59] An occasion lost cannot be redeemed

60] Why does one man’s yawning make another yawn?

61] No honest man ever repented his honesty

62] Advise none to marry or to go to war

63] Rome was not (or cannot be) built in a day

64] It is hard to sail over the sea in an egg-shell

65] Truth is god’s daughter

66] The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man

67] We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.

68] Even fools sometimes speak to the purpose

69] Good hand, good hire

70] Ill gotten, ill spent

71] Everybody’s business is nobody’s business

72] Take not a musket to kill a butterfly

73] Through obedience learn to command.

74] Joy and sorrow are next door neighbours.

75] Go to bed with the lamb, and rise with the lark

76] Water far away will not extinguish a fire that is nearby; relatives far from you are not as good as neighbours close to you.

77] Where there is whispering there is lying

78] Practice makes perfect

79] Much travel is needed to ripen a man’s rawness

80] Words and feathers the wind carries away

81] When the horse has reached the brink of the precipice, it is too late to pull the reins.

82] He who comes first, grinds first.

83] A burthen of one’s own choice is not felt

84] He that has a wife, has strife

85] Who is more busy than he that has least to do?

86] The pen is the tongue of the hand

87] When you know there are tigers on the hills, don’t go there

88] Love is without reason

89] Better fill a man’s belly than his eye

90] No man is his craft’s master the first day

91] Money talks

92] In haste is error

93] Every man has his price

94] A wise man will learn something even from the words of a fool

95] Everything is of use to a housekeeper

96] If there is no wind, the trees will not move

97] Arms bend inwards – not outwards.

98] God is a sure paymaster

99] There are more men threatened than stricken

100] Give credit where credit is due