Famous Proverbs

1] Findings are keepings

2] You never know your luck

3] A kind heart loseth nought at last.

4] A hundred pounds of sorrow pays not one ounce of debt

5] We are all Adam’s children

6] All are not thieves that dogs bark at

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

8] Fish begins to stink at the head

9] Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny

10] He who serves is not free

11] Let not thy tongue run away with thy brains

12] Even though one’s aunt sells the cakes, one will not buy unless they are cheap.

13] Innocence is no protection

14] Little pitchers have big ears.

15] Fingers were made before forks

16] Goods that are much on show lose their colour

17] None so blind as those who will not see

18] Content is better than riches

19] A good name is better than a golden girdle

20] Time and tide wait for no man

21] The best things come in small packages

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

23] Cut your coat according to your cloth

24] Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

25] Home is home though it be never so homely

26] You cannot have your cake and eat it

27] Every dog is a lion at home

28] Habits are at first cobwebs, at last cables.

29] It is as well to know which way the wind blows

30] One man eats the jackfruit, another gets his hands sticky

31] Every lot is to be overcome by endurance

32] A man whose conscience is clear, of a knock at midnight has no fear

33] To speak as the common people, to think as the wise

34] Necessity is mother of invention

35] The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak

36] What is brought by the wind will be carried away by the wind

37] Spend and be free, but make no waste

38] Too much curiosity lost paradise

39] Don’t meet trouble half-way

40] You cannot teach an old dog new tricks

41] Eat to live and not live to eat.

42] Better at home than a mile from it

43] It is easier to raise the devil than to lay him

44] We shall lie all alike in our graves

45] Covetousness breaks the sack

46] Great trees keep down the little ones

47] Red ink gives what it touches a pink glow; black ink gives what it touches a dirty stain.

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

49] One can’t help many, but many can help one

50] A word is enough to the wise

51] The hand that gives, gathers

52] It is easier to commend poverty than endure it.

53] Better an open enemy than a false friend

54] He who gives fair words feds you with and empty spoon

55] No playing with a straw before an old cat.

56] Strings high stretched either soon crack or quickly grow out of tune.

57] They bow to you when borrowing; you bow to them when collecting

58] An army marches on its stomach

59] Good goods are not cheap; cheap goods are not good

60] It is easy to get a thousand prescriptions but hard to find a cure.

61] Paddle your own canoe

62] Have two strings to your bow

63] A hungry man is angry man

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

65] It is ill waiting for dead men’s shoes

66] Envy is the sorrow of fools.

67] A quarrelsome man has no good neighbours

68] Fortune is blind

69] The folly of one man is the fortune of another

70] Manners make the man

71] He has to do what is foul, never comes away clean

72] The word is far him who has patience

73] A hungry man smells meat afar off

74] The calmest husbands make the stormiest wives

75] A good garden may have some ill weeds

76] Opportunity makes the thief

77] Once a use and ever a custom

78] A parrot will only say what it is taught

79] Judge not the tree by its bark

80] So many countries, so many customs

81] Appetite comes with eating

82] Gold brings gold; lack of gold, a headache

83] Don’t tell tales out of school

84] Open a book and you profit by what you read

85] It signifies nothing to play well if you lose.

86] Like father, like son

87] Nothing comes from nothing

88] The squeaking wheel gets the grease

89] The sun shines upon all alike.

90] Lovers’ quarrels are soon mended

91] He who has a mind to beat his dog will easily find a stick.

92] How forceful are right words

93] He that flings dirt at another dirtieth himself most

94] Don’t change horses in mid-stream

95] The perfect good is the exercise of virtue

96] Love knows no limit

97] Despair gives courage to a coward

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

99] How seldom in life is the moon directly overhead

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