Famous Proverbs

1] The grapes are sour’, as the fox said when he could not reach them

2] A cat may look at a king

3] Hoist your sail when the wind is fair

4] No man is born wise or learned

5] Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof

6] Who keeps company with the wolf, will learn to howl

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

8] If you would be well served, serve yourself

9] Honesty is the best policy

10] The kind-hearted person has a heavy load.

11] Better late than never

12] Familiarity breeds contempt

13] It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive

14] When wine sinks, words swim

15] Even water has its ebb and flow

16] He laughs ill that laughs himself to death

17] A secret fire is discovered by the smoke

18] Lightning never strikes twice in the same place

19] Better do a kindness near home than go to a temple far away to burn incense.

20] Hungry bellies have no ears

21] A living dog is better than a dead lion

22] Though a man lives for less than a hundred years, he burdens himself with the anxieties of a thousand years

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

24] A goose quill is more dangerous than a lion’s paw

25] The poor suffer all the wrong

26] Be careful to whom you give

27] A little learning is dangerous thing

28] Once bitten, twice shy.

29] As long lives a merry man as a sad

30] Safety lies in the middle course

31] Erring is not heating

32] Who is worse shod than the shoemaker’s wife?

33] The bait hides the hook

34] A secret fire is discovered by the smoke

35] There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip

36] He that is fallen cannot help him that is down

37] Every why has a wherefore

38] He who teaches learns

39] A new broom sweeps clean, but the old brush knows all the corners

40] Nature abhors a vacuum

41] The healthful man can give counsel to the sick

42] Bind the sack before it be full

43] He that promises too much means nothing

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

45] The cow knows not what her tail is worth till she has lost it

46] Everything comes to him who waits

47] Walls have ears

48] The hasty leaps over his opportunities

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

50] Men leap over where the hedge is lowest

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

52] One good turn deserves another

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

54] Many would be cowards, if they had courage enough

55] Shame arises more from fear of men than of God

56] Comfort is not known if poverty does not come before it

57] Don’t play with fire

58] A white –wasted crow will not long remain white

59] The quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love

60] A discontented man knows not where to sit easy

61] Give him an inch and he’ll take a yard

62] A pot that belongs to many is ill stirred and worse boiled

63] It is a silly fish that is caught twice with the same bait.

64] It is a shame to be shameless

65] True doctrines require no miracles

66] A bad padlock invites a picklock

67] It the counsel be good, no matter who gave it.

68] Boys will be boys

69] It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf his confessor

70] Poverty is the mother of crime

71] He should have a long spoon who sups with the devil.

72] Better belly burst than good meat lost

73] It is easier to commend poverty than endure it.

74] It is good sheltering under an old hedge

75] Credit lost is like a Venice glass broken

76] Why does one man’s yawning make another yawn?

77] Great trees keep down the little ones

78] That voyage never has luck where each one has a vote.

79] He that cannot pay in purse must pay in person

80] Paddle your own canoe

81] If you do not enter a tiger’s den, you cannot get its cubs

82] Far from eye, far from heart

83] Truth conquers all things

84] Health and gaiety foster beauty.

85] The rain of tears is necessary to the harvest of learning

86] Nature is the true law

87] The worth of a thing is what it will bring

88] It signifies nothing to play well if you lose.

89] Without luck, it is better not to be born

90] Children speak only words they have heard.

91] He that has a fellow-ruler, has an over-ruler. ¶ There is no good accord, where every man would be a lord

92] Every man has his faults

93] Procrastination is the thief of time

94] Don’t play with edged tools

95] If you wish to die young, make your physician your heir

96] You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear

97] A light purse makes a heavy heart

98] Look on the bright side

99] The last suitor wins the maid

100] It is never too late to mend