Famous Proverbs

1] Rats desert (or forsake) a sinking ship

2] Every Jack must have his Jill

3] When you live next to a cemetery, you cannot weep for everyone

4] If one will not, another will

5] Do as most men do, then most men well speak well of you

6] Poor folk fare the best

7] All our pomp the earth covers

8] Every man is his own worst enemy

9] There are spots even in the sun

10] He who does not rise with the sun does not enjoy the day

11] When a man is happy, he does not hear the clock strike

12] He that is down need fear no fall

13] Give a lie a twenty-four-hour start, and you can never overtake it.

14] Clean and whole makes poor clothes shine.

15] Misfortune arrives on horseback but departs on foot

16] If one sheep leaps over the ditch (or dyke), all the rest will follow

17] Gold is tried in the fire

18] Little by little and bit by bit.

19] What is worse than ill luck?

20] Beauty is but skin-deep

21] Home is home though it be never so homely

22] To fright a bird is not the way to catch her

23] Put too much lemon-grass into the curry and you’ll spoil the flavour

24] It is good fishing in troubled waters

25] Better no doctor at all than three.

26] A knave and a fool never take thought

27] When misfortune sleeps, let no one wake her

28] A man in debt is caught in a net

29] He that brings good news, knocks hard

30] A good servant must have good wages

31] Asking costs little

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

33] It is a shame to be shameless

34] Hard words break no bones

35] Words and feathers the wind carries away

36] Files are easier caught with honey than with vinegar

37] He is rich that has few wants

38] A whip for a fool, and a rod for a school, is always in good seasons

39] The best horse needs breaking, and the aptest child needs teaching

40] The ass that brays most eats

41] Every why has a wherefore

42] Youth will have its course.

43] One reason is as good as fifty

44] Laugh and grow fat

45] Walls have ears

46] It is an ill dog that deserves not a crust

47] First things first

48] Rome was not built in a day

49] Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

50] Forgiveness is perfect when the sin is not remembered

51] Money breeds (or makes, or begets) money

52] Cast not the first stone.

53] Three helping one another, bear the burthen of six

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

55] It is better to have done something great than to have never been successful

56] Be careful to whom you give

57] An Englishman’s home is his castle

58] God’s lambs will play.

59] Never say die

60] Fear the Greeks (or Beware of Greeks) bearing gifts

61] No tie can oblige the perfidious

62] A man should keep from the blind and give t his kin.

63] Punctuality is the politeness of kings.

64] He that gives his goods before he be dead, take up a mallet and knock him on the head

65] Wise men do not argue with idiots

66] Through hardship to the stars

67] They brag most who can do least

68] Seek and you shall find

69] Local ginger is never as hot as imported ginger

70] Every dog is a lion at home

71] There is nothing like being on the safe side

72] Men are not to be measured in inches

73] Live not to eat, but eat to live

74] Work won’t kill but worry will.

75] No man limps because another is hurt

76] Change brings life

77] In everything consider the end

78] That which Nature paints never fades

79] Leave well alone

80] He that speaks well, flights well

81] A good wife makes a good husband

82] Money makes the man

83] We have all been once in our life

84] One good turn deserves another

85] What’s done is done

86] Every horse thinks its own pack heaviest

87] Soon gotten, soon spent

88] The road to hell is paved with good action

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

90] He that desires but little has no deed of much

91] If you would wed fitly, wed in your station

92] One must be a servant before one can be a master

93] None can guess the jewel by the casket

94] Better belly burst than good meat lost

95] The best throw of the dice is to throw them away

96] When things are at the worst, they begin to mend

97] Time lost cannot be recalled

98] There’s small choice in rotten apples.

99] The greatest talkers are the least doers

100] The ass that brays most eats