Famous Proverbs

1] Waste is not grandeur

2] The borrower is servant to the lender

3] Slow help is no help

4] Knowledge is the mother of all virtue; all vice proceeds from ignorance

5] Covetousness breaks the sack

6] Everything tempts the man who fears temptation. If you can’t be good, be careful.

7] You cannot skimp on the fodder and have an energetic horse.

8] Marry in haste, repent at leisure

9] Content is more than a kingdom

10] It is ill striving against the stream

11] The first step is the only difficulty

12] The poorer one is, the more devils one meets

13] He that is absent is soon forgotten

14] A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

15] Pleasant hours fly past

16] Advise none to marry or to go to war

17] When the boat reaches the middle of the river, it is too late to repair the leak

18] Travel with open eyes and you will become a scholar

19] When the word is out it belongs to another

20] He that would have the fruit, must climb the tree.

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

22] In the land of hope there is never any winter

23] Few words are best

24] Misfortune makes foes of friends

25] Make hay while the sun shines

26] Patience under old injuries invites new ones

27] All work and no play makes jack a dull boy

28] Hope keeps man alive

29] The best things come in small packages

30] Make the best of a bad bargain

31] No choice amongst stinking fish

32] It is a shame to be shameless

33] Exchange (or Fair exchange) is no robbery

34] Nothing so bad in which there is not something of good

35] To refuse and to give tardily is all the same

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

37] Medical plants from one’s own back-yard are no valued.

38] Nothing is given so freely as advice

39] Desperate diseases need (or must have) desperate cures

40] When we sing, everybody hears us; when sigh, nobody hears us

41] Like mistress, like maid

42] Pursuits become habits

43] Christmas comes but once a year

44] Good is good but better carries it

45] He who last, laughs longest.

46] He that comes of a hen, must scrape

47] Seldom seen, soon forgotten

48] Words and feathers the wind carries away

49] A jest breaks no bones

50] Where your will is ready, your feet are light

51] If you agree to carry the calf, they’ll make you carry the cow.

52] It is an ill sign to see a fox lick a lamb

53] If you put noting into your purse, you can take nothing out

54] No honest man ever repented his honesty

55] None so blind as those who will not see

56] A house divided against itself cannot stand

57] If fortune turns against you, even jelly breaks your tooth

58] The ant had wings to her hurt

59] The cowl does not make the monk.

60] Hard cases make bad law

61] Good hand, good hire

62] Noting is impossible to a willing heart

63] Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches

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

65] The thread breaks where it is weakest

66] Where there is peace, God is

67] Open confession is good for the soul

68] He is a fool who makes his physician his heir

69] The absent party is always to blame.

70] White there’s life there’s hope

71] One sheep follows another

72] A single filament of silk does not make a thread; a single tree does not make a forest

73] The ass that brays most eats

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

75] It is ill jesting with edged tools

76] When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then a gentleman?

77] An ill marriage is a spring of ill fortune

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

79] Well begun is half done.

80] All lay loads on a willing horse

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

82] Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof

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

84] Custom reconciles us to everything

85] A great city, a great solitude

86] Man cannot live by bread alone

87] You cannot know the wine by the barrel

88] Little things are great to little men

89] The flesh is aye fairest that is farthest from the bone

90] Nature is content with little.

91] He that peeps in at his neighbor’s window may chance to lose his eyes

92] The faulty stands on his guard

93] If there is no wind, the trees will not move

94] Drive thy business or it will drive thee.

95] Four eyes see better than two.

96] Every Jack must have his Jill

97] The flesh is aye fairest that is farthest from the bone

98] Nothing venture (or ventured), nothing gain (or gained)

99] As soon as there is life there is danger

100] Patient waiters are no losers