Famous Proverbs

1] Old age doesn’t protect from folly

2] No land without stones, or meat without bones

3] One swallow does not make a summer

4] More have repented speech than silence

5] Afflictions are sent to us by God for our good

6] Life is short and time is swift

7] It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life

8] If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again

9] War, hunting and love are as full of trouble as pleasure

10] Even Buddha has a limit to what he can tolerate

11] The hasty leaps over his opportunities

12] Wiles help weak folk

13] Habits are at first cobwebs, at last cables

14] Honest men marry soon, wise men not at all

15] First creep, then walk

16] Dreams go by contraries

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

18] Patient men with the day.

19] One man sows and another reaps

20] Every why has a wherefore

21] Have patience with a friend rather than lost him forever.

22] Ill comes often on the back worse

23] Live and Learn

24] More than enough is too much

25] Don’t build the sty before the litter comes

26] Set a wolf to keep the sheep

27] God is always on the side of the big battalions

28] Pat any man and dust will fly

29] Better a little loss than a long sorrow

30] He stands not surely that never slips

31] The last drop makes the cup run over

32] Experience is good if not bought too dear

33] Things past cannot be recalled

34] Common fame is seldom to blame

35] False friends are worse than bitter enemies.

36] All cats are grey in the dark

37] An ounce of practice is worth a pound of precept

38] If you have known one, you have known them all

39] Wherever an ass falls, there will he never fall again

40] Share and share alike

41] Know when to spend and when to spare, and you need not be busy, you’ll never be bare

42] Time flees without a delay

43] The longest night will have an end

44] A bad padlock invites a picklock

45] Neglect will kill an injury sooner than revenge

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

47] Respect is greater from a distance

48] Counsel must be followed, not praised.

49] One good deed makes up for a thousand bad ones.

50] All covet all lose.

51] A fox should not be of the jury at a goose’s trial

52] Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterwards

53] Do not cut down the tree that gives you shade

54] Live and let live

55] Prove your friend ere you have need

56] Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof

57] Spend not where you may save, spare not where you must spend

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

59] God’ s mill grids slow but sure

60] He that would catch fish must venture his bait

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

62] Be just before you are generous

63] Everything would fain live

64] He that has a wife, has strife

65] Misfortune does not always come to injure

66] Fling dirt enough, and some will stick

67] The longest way round is the shortest way home

68] A fool may give a wise man counsel

69] Even fools sometimes speak to the purpose

70] Money gives a bold front: it doesn’t talk – it screams

71] Nothing succeeds like success

72] It is best to be on the safe side

73] Who greases his way travels easily

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

75] A blind man who sees is better than a seeing man who is blind

76] Love is lawless.

77] While the word is in your mouth, it is your own; when ‘tis another’s

78] Each man, in corrupting others, corrupts himself

79] Much law but little justice

80] Variety takes away satiety

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

82] An ill wound is cured, not an ill name

83] God helps those who help themselves

84] He who spends before he thrives will beg before he thinks

85] One cannot put back the clock

86] Familiarity breeds contempt

87] Never too late to learn

88] Many drops make a shower

89] Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage

90] An ape’s an ape, a varlet’s a varlet, though they be clad in silk or scarlet

91] It is the unexpected that always happens

92] Revenge never repairs an injury

93] He who squeezes in between the onion and the peel, picks up its stink.

94] Rome was not built in a day

95] Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay.

96] All truths are not to be told

97] It is a foolish bird that soils (or defiles ) its own nest

98] A man’s wealth is his enemy

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

100] An army marches on its stomach