Famous Proverbs

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

2] If you gently touch a nettle, it’ll sting you for your pains; grasp it like a man of mettle, and it soft as silk remains.

3] See a pin and let it lie, you’ll want a pin before you die

4] Know thyself

5] Barking dogs seldom bite

6] He that is born a fool is never cured

7] Black will take no other hue

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

9] Things past cannot be recalled

10] If you gently touch a nettle, it’ll sting you for your pains; grasp it like a man of mettle, and it soft as silk remains.

11] Too much curiosity lost paradise

12] A man may learn wit every day.

13] No man knows what good is than he who has endured evil

14] He that would eat the kernel must crack the nut

15] A penny saved is a penny gained

16] Eat an apple going to bed, make the doctor beg his bread.

17] The disinterested observer may perceive what is missed by those who are directly involved

18] Pardoning the bad is injuring the good

19] One barber shaves another gratis

20] To err is human

21] Strings high stretched either soon crack or quickly grow out of tune.

22] Don’t burn the candle at both ends

23] A secret fire is discovered by the smoke

24] There is no blindness like ignorance

25] Nature will have her course

26] Pride goes before a fall

27] He that will thrive, must rise at five; he that has thriven, may lie till seven; but he that will never thrive may lie till eleven

28] If each would sweep before his own door, we should have a clean city

29] Grasp all, lose all

30] Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone

31] The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands

32] Easter so longed for is gone in a day

33] Never do evil that good may come of it

34] It needs more skill than I can tell to play the second fiddle well

35] When you know there are tigers on the hills, don’t go there

36] Small is the seed of every greatness

37] A penny weight of love is worth a pound of law

38] Every lot is to be overcome by endurance

39] Conscience is a thousand witnesses

40] Grasp all, lose all

41] Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

42] The poor sit on the front benches in Paradise

43] How seldom in life is the moon directly overhead

44] There are more ways to the wood than one.

45] Eat to live and not live to eat.

46] Never make threats you cannot carry out.

47] A man can do no more than he can

48] Weeds need no sowing

49] Novelty always appears handsome

50] What is shown by example, men think they may justly do

51] The shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot.

52] The king can do no wrong

53] Fair is not fair, but that which pleases.

54] Well begun is half done.

55] Nothing seek, nothing find

56] Goods that are much on show lose their colour

57] Knowledge humbles the great man, astonishes the common man and puffeth up the little man

58] Best is cheapest

59] Better to ask the way than go astray.

60] Destroy the lion while he is yet but a whelp

61] Through indecision, opportunity is often lost.

62] No day so clear but has dark clouds

63] They that dance must pay the fiddler

64] So many men, so many opinions

65] Ambition makes people diligent

66] Noting is impossible to a willing heart

67] Conscience does make cowards of us all

68] You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours

69] Hunger is the teacher of many

70] It is not every question that deserves an answer

71] Neither bribe, nor lose thy right

72] Kindness is the noblest weapon to conquer with.

73] As soon as there is life there is danger

74] Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny

75] There is safety in numbers

76] To err is human; to forgive, divine

77] That fish will soon be caught that nibbles at every bait

78] Ill news comes often on the back of worse

79] Love rules without a sword, and binds without a cord

80] The more laws, the more offenders

81] An honest good look covers many faults.

82] Dogs bark as they are bred.

83] New meat begets a new appetite

84] We must not look for a golden life in an iron age

85] Four eyes see better than two.

86] The shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot.

87] Long life has long misery

88] He that would catch fish must venture his bait

89] One may change the place but not the mind.

90] An angry man is not fit to pray

91] An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden

92] Good merchandise finds a ready buyer

93] The worth of a thing is best known by the want of it

94] Make haste slowly

95] Lovers are madmen

96] The great would have none great, and the little all little

97] If you don’t make mistakes, you don’t make anything

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

99] Coming events cast their shadows before

100] Vows made in storms are forgotten in calm