Famous Proverbs

1] It is too late to call back yesterday

2] The wish is father to the thought

3] Think on the end before you begin

4] If the fingers of one hand quarrel, they cannot pick up food

5] It’s hard to get one’s own sword back when it’s in someone else’s scabbard

6] He that comes first to the hill, may sit where he will.

7] You may know by a handful the whole sack

8] He that is in poverty is still in suspicion

9] Necessity is mother of invention

10] One cannot put back the clock

11] An ill marriage is a spring of ill fortune

12] Choose your neighbour before your house and your companion before the road.

13] Empty vessels make the most noise

14] Once you have been bitten by a snake, even a piece of cord will frighten you.

15] Nothing stake, nothing draw.

16] Grin and bear it

17] Great consolation may grow out of the smallest saying

18] Set a wolf to keep the sheep

19] Experience is good if not bought too dear

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

21] It is easy to move rivers and mountains, but difficult to change a person’s basic nature

22] Old habits die hard

23] It’s either not to begin or not to stop once you’ve begun

24] God gives us the milk, but not the pail

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

26] Life would be too smooth, if it has no rubs in it.

27] What is not even scabies, he makes out to be an ulcer

28] Familiarity breeds contempt

29] He that will not endure to itch must endure to smart

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

31] It at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again

32] New things are fair

33] What is word but wind?

34] Water is a boon in the desert, but the drowning man curses it.

35] As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamp

36] Water is the king of food

37] Example, is better than precept

38] A discontented man knows not where to sit easy

39] Tempt not a desperate man

40] A fool always rushes to the fore.

41] It is a hard-fought field where no man escapes unkilled

42] A fault confessed is half redressed

43] A good reaper deserves a good sickle.

44] Beauty is potent but money is omnipotent

45] Knavery may serve for a turn, nut honesty is best in the long run

46] Union is strength.

47] Don’t judge any man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.

48] The effect speaks, the tongue need not

49] Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

50] Neither praise nor dispraise thyself; thy actions serve the turn

51] Fire is a good servant a bad master

52] An evil life is a kind of death.

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

54] Standing pools gather fifth

55] Where bad’s the best, bad must be the choice

56] Better the last smile than the first laugh

57] The lone sheep is in danger of the wolf

58] Vast chasms can be filled, but the heart of man never

59] Learn to see in another’s misfortune, the ills which you should avoid.

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

61] Do not limp before the lame

62] Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow.

63] The hand that gives, gathers

64] Never do evil that good may come of it

65] Choose your neighbour before your house and your companion before the road.

66] He that can stay. Obtains

67] Anger begins with folly and ends with repentance.

68] Open confession is good for the soul

69] Clean and whole makes poor clothes shine.

70] He who can does. He who cannot teaches

71] A good name is better than riches

72] Sow thin and mow thin

73] Good broth may be made in an old pot

74] It is too late to look up after you have collided

75] A man can do no more than he can

76] You may have too much of a good thing

77] Set a thief to catch a thief

78] Every man must carry his own cross

79] No man is the worse for knowing the worst of himself

80] Diamond cuts diamond

81] One master in a house is enough

82] The best go first

83] What is worth doing is worth doing well

84] A lion may be beholden to a mouse

85] One swallow does not make a summer

86] Don’t take your harp to the party

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

88] Some people will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon.

89] A guilty conscience feels continual fear

90] Honour is the reward of virtue

91] Better a little loss than a long sorrow

92] First think, and then speak

93] Jesters do oft prove prophets

94] Beauty is potent but money is omnipotent

95] The ass that brays most eats

96] Better no doctor at all than three.

97] When the fox preaches, then beware your geese

98] He that asks faintly begs a denial.

99] Poverty is not a shame, but the being ashamed of it is

100] Every dog has his day