Famous Proverbs

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

2] A great city, a great solitude

3] He that tells a secret, is another’s servant.

4] He laughs best who laughs last

5] An old ox makes a straight furrow

6] Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me

7] It is not every question that deserves an answer

8] He is an ill husband who is not missed

9] He that has a full purse never wanted a friend

10] Too much cunning undoes

11] Out of the frying-pan into the fire

12] God forgives sins, otherwise heaven would be empty.

13] Leave well alone

14] Love is blind

15] Each day brings its own bread

16] When the word is out it belongs to another

17] When the ear will not listen, the heart escapes sorrow

18] To advise someone not to gamble is to win money for him

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

20] How seldom in life is the moon directly overhead

21] When meat is in anger is out

22] The company makes the feast

23] What is a workman without his tools?

24] Out of the frying-pan into the fire

25] Homo is a common name to all men.

26] An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest

27] You may have too much of a good thing

28] He who owes is in all the wrong

29] It will be the same a hundred years hence

30] When two men look after a horse, it will surely be thin; when two families keep a boat, it will surely leak

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

32] Love is sweet torment

33] No naked man is sought after to be rifled

34] All heiresses are beautiful.

35] It is late to cover the well when the child is drowned.

36] You may force a man to shut his eyes but you can’t make him sleep

37] Envy is the sorrow of fools.

38] The remedy for injuries is not to remember them

39] It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest

40] Those near the temple deride the gods

41] The courteous one learns his courtesy from the discourteous.

42] He that will not have peace, God gives him war

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

44] Nature is content with little.

45] Accidents will happen

46] The end makes all equal

47] Tell a lie and stick to it.

48] First creep, then walk

49] Don’t take your harp to the party

50] Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones

51] The balance distinguishes not between gold and lead

52] Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay.

53] Let like mate with like

54] The tailor makes the man

55] Patience is a flower that grows not in everyone’s garden

56] Don’t kick against the pricks

57] Wise men learn by other men’s harms (or mistakes), fools, by their own

58] The last straw breaks the camel’s back

59] Few words are best

60] You may force a man to shut his eyes but you can’t make him sleep

61] Talk of an angel and you’ll hear the fluttering of his wings

62] An Englishman’s home is his castle

63] Of two evils choose the lesser

64] Extremity of right is wrong

65] Even the grubs in the rocks manage to survive

66] The slowest barker is the surest biter

67] God never sends mouths but he sent meat

68] An old ox will find a shelter for himself

69] When the horse has reached the brink of the precipice, it is too late to pull the reins.

70] Least said, soonest mended

71] Take not a musket to kill a butterfly

72] Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth

73] Don’t try to run before you walk

74] A man of many trades, begs his bread on Sunday

75] Homo is a common name to all men.

76] A good tongue is a good weapon

77] Diamond cuts diamond

78] There is no blindness like ignorance

79] What’s the good of thatching someone else’s roof?

80] Even if you wash a crow with rose- water, its feathers won’t become white.

81] Use the means, and God will give the blessings

82] No one is rich enough to do without his neighbours

83] Great consolation may grow out of the smallest saying

84] He that sleeps sound feels not the toothache

85] The difficult is done at once; the impossible takes a little longer

86] Ill comes often on the back worse

87] Money is the only monarch

88] Work has a bitter root but sweet fruit.

89] Nature does nothing in vain

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

91] Fair without, false within

92] No one is satisfied with his fortune, nor dissatisfied with his intellect

93] Long roads test the horse; long dealings test the friend

94] It is profound ignorance that inspires the dogmatic tone

95] Fools live poor to die rich

96] A dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees the farther of the two

97] The unexpected always happens.

98] No man is indispensable

99] Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him

100] Words cut more than swords