Famous Proverbs

1] He who would hang his dog gives out first that it is mad

2] Marriage is a lottery

3] The peony, though large, is useless; the date blossom, though small, yields fruit

4] Don’t stitch your seam before you’ve tacked it.

5] A long tongue is a sign of a short hand

6] Learning is like sailing against the tide - if you don’t move forward, you go backward

7] All cats love fish but fear to wet their paws

8] He who sows, trusts in God

9] Fool rush in where angels fear to trend

10] Children and fools have merry lives

11] We can live without our friends, but not without our neighbours

12] The dog that is idle barks at his fleas, but he that is hunting feels them not.

13] He that touches pitch shall be defiled

14] Everything must have a beginning

15] Sickness shows us what we are

16] Handsome is as handsome does

17] Truth is mighty and will prevail

18] Naughty boys sometimes make good men.

19] Ask, and it shall be given to you.

20] A parrot will only say what it is taught

21] The delay is good which makes the way the safer

22] Beggars must not (can’t) be choosers

23] Christmas comes but once a year

24] He who says what he likes shall hear what he does not like

25] What one loses (or you lose) on the swings, one makes up (or you gain) on the roundabouts

26] A penny saved is a penny gained

27] Nature abhors a vacuum

28] Great trees keep down the little ones

29] Marriage halves our griefs, doubles our joys and quadruples our expenses

30] Death does not recognize strength

31] One is what one eats

32] Only a fool will make the doctor his heir

33] Better the foot slip than the tongue

34] A goose quill is more dangerous than a lion’s paw

35] Often and little eating makes a man fat

36] It is too late to lock the stable when the horse has been stolen

37] Soft fire makes sweet malt

38] He is rich that has few wants

39] Poverty is not a crime

40] Cleanliness is next to godliness

41] Exchange is no robbery

42] Goods that are much on show lose their colour

43] Share and share alike

44] Of one ill come many

45] No one is rich enough to do without his neighbours

46] A burdened conscience will never need a hangman

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

48] Patience is a plaster for all sores

49] There is no garden without its weeds

50] Half the world knows not how the other half lives

51] He that comes of a hen, must scrape

52] How seldom in life is the moon directly overhead

53] Corruption of the best becomes the worst

54] Give the devil his due

55] Quietness is a great treasure

56] Waste makes wants

57] Every beggar is descended from some king, and every king is descended from some beggar.

58] Little pitchers have big ears.

59] Lovers are madmen

60] It is as natural to die as to be born

61] Dirty water does not wash clean.

62] Hope is grief’s best music

63] Time flees without a delay

64] Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone

65] There are spots even in the sun

66] A lion may come to be beholden to a mouse

67] Everyone puts his fault on the times.

68] What is bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh

69] The end crowns the work.

70] Conscience is a thousand witnesses

71] You may have too much of a good thing

72] Better a bare foot than none

73] Catch not at the shadow and lose the substance

74] Men are not to be measured in inches

75] He that speaks well, flights well

76] Needs must when the evil drives

77] Silence is a woman’s best garment

78] A rich man’s joke is always funny

79] If you put noting into your purse, you can take nothing out

80] If one sheep leaps o’er the dyke, all the rest will follow

81] Clean and whole makes poor clothes shine.

82] It is poor dog that is not worth the whistling

83] Beauty is but skin-deep

84] The best go first

85] He is a good friend that speaks well of us behind our backs

86] We don’t get something for nothing

87] Four eyes see better than two.

88] Never too late to late to repent

89] Arms bend inwards – not outwards.

90] What is new cannot be true

91] Nothing is as good as it seems before hand

92] The biter is sometimes bit

93] One potter envies another

94] Will is the cause of woe

95] As long as the old horse lives, his habits will not change

96] One must howl with the wolves

97] A man apt to promise, is apt to forget

98] A person with a determined heart frightens Problems away

99] A man’s studies pass in to his character

100] A heavy purse makes a light heart