Famous Proverbs

1] Go while the going is good

2] Ill weeds grow apace (or fast)

3] There’s no fence against ill fortune.

4] Patience is a flower that grows not in everyone’s garden

5] Excessive happiness produces pain

6] He that the devil drives, feels no lead at his heels

7] Shame arises more from fear of men than of God

8] Loyalty is worth more than money

9] Drops that gather one by one finally become a sea

10] He who cannot bear misfortune is truly unfortunate.

11] A man must plough with such oxen as he has

12] Better to ask the way than go astray.

13] The grapes are sour’, as the fox said when he could not reach them

14] Words have wings, and cannot be recalled

15] The shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot.

16] Keep your eyes open: a sale is a sale

17] Poor men’s words have little weight

18] The worth of a thing is best known by the want of it

19] A wise man cares not for what he cannot have

20] Repentance comes too late

21] To take revenge is often to sacrifice oneself

22] Better the foot slip than the tongue

23] Out of debt, out of danger

24] Asking costs little

25] Leave well alone

26] The higher you climb, the harder you fall

27] A cat may look at a king

28] You cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds

29] Make the best of a bad bargain

30] Each man, in corrupting others, corrupts himself

31] The game is not worth the candle

32] He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved

33] Possibilities are infinite

34] There are more men threatened than stricken

35] Give a dog a bad name and hang him

36] Enquire not what boils in another’s pot. ¶ Listeners seldom hear good of themselves

37] If you can’t bite, never show your teeth.

38] A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword

39] He loves roast meat well that licks the spit.

40] Men are blind in their own cause

41] Might knows no right

42] Old habits die hard

43] Though a lie be swift the truth overtakes it

44] Give him (or knaves) an inch and he (they) will take a yard (or mile)

45] Thrift is a great revenue

46] It is better to conceal one’s knowledge than to reveal one’s ignorance

47] Though the food is plain, stomach may be filled; though the cloth is coarse, one may be clad to a ripe old age

48] Industry is fortune’s right hand, and frugality her left

49] The truest jests sound worst in guilty ears

50] A rich miser is poorer than a poor man

51] A change is as good as rest

52] Hypocrisy is a homage that vice pay to virtue

53] The best things carried to excess are wrong

54] Experience is the mother of wisdom

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

56] In a clam sea, every man is a pilot

57] To fright a bird is not the way to catch her

58] Envy never enriched any man.

59] It is too late to grieve when the chance is past

60] Custom reconciles us to everything

61] Kindle not a fire that you cannot extinguish

62] It is a silly fish that is caught twice with the same bait.

63] Give and spend, and God will send

64] Much babbling is not without offence

65] Cloudy mornings turn to clear afternoons

66] It is ill striving (or swimming) against the stream (or tide)

67] Take away fuel, take away flame

68] Curses, like chickens, come home to roost

69] Cruelty is more cruel, if we defer the pain

70] Practice makes perfect

71] Intimacy lessens fame

72] The death of the wolves is the safety of the sheep

73] Put out your tubs when it is raining

74] The rich man thinks of the future, the poor man thinks of today

75] Soon learnt, soon forgotten

76] Help a lame dog over a stile

77] When the dog catches mice, it is meddling in the cat’s business.

78] Blessed is he who excepts nothing, for he shall never be disappointed

79] It is not the hood that makes the monk.

80] Spread the table, and contention will cease

81] Of evil manners, spring good laws

82] There is nothing permanent except change

83] If things were to be done twice, all would be wise.

84] Time and tide wait for no man

85] Ill comes often on the back worse

86] No choice amongst stinking fish

87] Hope springs eternal in the human heart

88] Though it rains gold and silver there, it’s a foreign land; though it rains daggers and spears here, it’s our own country

89] We don’t get something for nothing

90] Rats desert (or forsake) a sinking ship

91] Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost

92] Cheap is dear in the long run.

93] We soon believe what we desire

94] Every man is his own worst enemy

95] The wise forget an insult, as the ungrateful a kindness

96] Put not the bucket too often in the well

97] Enough is as good as a feast

98] Cease to hope and you will cease to fear.

99] Everything would fain live

100] The pitcher goes so often to me well that it is broken at last