Famous Proverbs

1] The game is not worth the candle

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

3] Have two strings to your bow

4] Easy come, easy go

5] Love will go through stone walls

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

7] Without wisdom, wealth is worthless

8] Hope for the best and prepare for the worst

9] Everything new is fine

10] We should publish our joys and conceal our griefs

11] One sheep follows another

12] The joy of the heart makes the face fair.

13] As you plant wild grass, you won’t get a crop of rice.

14] Nothing so bad as not to be good for something

15] If every man would sweep before his own door, the city would soon be clean

16] Master easy, servant slack

17] An honest good look covers many faults.

18] Comparisons are odious

19] An old dog barks not in vain

20] Crust is better than no bread

21] He that dare not venture must not complain of ill luck

22] What is money to a cat?

23] A tiger that roars is not a man-eater

24] He that pities another remembers himself

25] A little help is worth a deal of pity

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

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

28] Extremes meet

29] The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny

30] Money has no smell

31] Moderation in all things

32] Every man is his own worst enemy

33] Patience is a virtue

34] In doing we learn.

35] Men count up the faults of those who keep them waiting

36] The squeaking wheel gets the grease

37] Tender-handed stroke a nettle, and it stings you for your pain: grasp it like a man of mettle, and it soft as silk remains

38] He who cannot put up with extreme hardship cannot be the best among men

39] It is easier to praise poverty than to bear it.

40] One must howl with the wolves

41] Hope often deludes the foolish man

42] The golden age was never the present age

43] Choose thy company before thy drink

44] A beggar pays a benefit with a louse

45] The fairest silk is soonest stained

46] Give and take is fair play

47] If you pay not a servant his wages, he will pay himself

48] A good beginning is half the battle.

49] Some have been thought brave because they are afraid to run away

50] Would you know what money is, got borrow some

51] Facts are more eloquent than oratory

52] Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

53] Cowards die often. He that fears death lives not

54] He who does not rise early never does a good day’s work

55] Excessive politeness is often a cloak for insincerity

56] Men strain at gnats and swallow camels

57] Too far east is west

58] Dress up a stick and it does not appear to be a stick

59] Poison is poison though it comes in a golden cup.

60] What costs little is little esteemed

61] A great calligrapher isn’t choosy about his brushes.

62] No man better knows what good is than he who has endured evil

63] Exceptional bravery is often hidden under a cloak of timidity

64] Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

65] He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow

66] God comes at last when think he is farthest off

67] All is fair in love and war

68] Better no doctor at all than three.

69] The purse of the patient protracts the disease

70] Give a fool (or a thief) enough rope and he will hang himself

71] Words are but wind, but seeing’s believing

72] First try and then trust

73] Gnaw the bone which is fallen to thy lot

74] Burn not your house to fright the mouse away

75] Evil often triumphs but never conquers.

76] If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.

77] In vain they rise early that used to rise late

78] Good wine needs no bush

79] The tongue is more venomous than a serpent’s sting

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

81] Much science, much sorrow

82] Just give me one end of the line and I’ll get to the other

83] Love and business teach eloquence

84] Will is no skill

85] The whole boat is putrid because of a single carp

86] If you would make an enemy, lend a man money and ask it of him again

87] The hunchback does not see his own hump, but his companion’s

88] One fool praises another

89] It is best to be on the safe side

90] Least said, soonest mended

91] He is not poor that has little, but he that desires much

92] Good riding at two anchors, men have told, for if one breaks the other may hold

93] There is death in the pot.

94] Man punishes the action but God the intention

95] Fair face, foul heart

96] A lion may be beholden to a mouse

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

98] Finger were made before forks, and hands before knives

99] Great consolation may grow out of the smallest saying

100] The proud will sooner lose than ask the way