Famous Proverbs

1] Keep your mouth shut and your ears open

2] The belly carries the legs

3] Work smart; don’t work hard

4] Give yourself a pinch, and you will know how a pinch must hurt others

5] What must be must be

6] He that hopes not for good, fears not evil.

7] Beware of a silent man and still water

8] Law cannot persuade where it cannot punish

9] In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

10] Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

11] He that brings good news, knocks hard

12] Every man for himself, and God for us all.

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

14] New lords, new laws

15] Accidents will happen in the best regulated families

16] A burthen of one’s own choice is not felt

17] He who begins many things, finishes but few

18] A bully never grows up.

19] Enough is as good as a feast

20] The wise forget an insult, as the ungrateful a kindness

21] Great gain makes easy work

22] Every dog is a lion at home

23] There is no tree but bears some fruit

24] Eaten bread is soon forgotten

25] God is always on the side of the big battalions

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

27] Fortune favours fools

28] Wise men learn by other men’s harm, fools, by their own

29] There is many a good tune played on an old fiddle

30] Haste makes waste

31] Little fishes slip through nets, but great fishes are taken

32] Loyalty is worth more than money

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

34] Silence and thinking can no man offend

35] A man must plough with such oxen as he has

36] No good building without a good foundation.

37] Patience is the remedy of the world

38] Men leap over where the hedge is lowest

39] Striving to better, often we mar what’s well.

40] Often and little eating makes a man fat

41] Let sleeping dogs lie

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

43] New brooms sweep clean

44] Set a beggar on horse back and he’ll ride to the devil

45] A good reaper deserves a good sickle.

46] Two dogs fight for a bone, and a third runs away with it.

47] Of two evils choose the lesser

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

49] Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them

50] No pot so ugly as not to find a cover

51] A lion may come to be beholden to a mouse

52] Water far away will not extinguish a fire that is nearby; relatives far from you are not as good as neighbours close to you.

53] One learns to know oneself best behind one’s back

54] Garbage in, garbage out

55] Affection blinds reason

56] He that dwells next door to a cripple, will learn to halt

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

58] Pleasure is due only when all duty’s done.

59] Never do evil that good may come of it

60] Every dog is valiant at his won door

61] When all men say you are an ass, it is time to bray

62] What costs little is little esteemed

63] He that praises himself, spatters himself

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

65] Kill two birds with one stone

66] An empty sack cannot stand upright

67] A watched pot never boils

68] Hasty climbers have sudden falls

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

70] A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword

71] Saving one man’s life is better than building a seven- storied temple.

72] Those near the temple deride the gods

73] Do as you would be done by

74] An ill payer (or paymaster) never wants an excuse

75] Wiles help weak folk

76] In the end, things will mend

77] Ugly women finely dressed, are the uglier for it.

78] See which way the cat jumps

79] Men are known by the company they keep.

80] Finger were made before forks, and hands before knives

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

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

83] Divide and rule

84] A good horse cannot wear two saddles

85] A curse will not strike out an eye unless a fist goes with it

86] All things are possible with god

87] The cobbler should stick to his last

88] A fox should not be of the jury at a goose’s trial

89] The wisest of the wise may err.

90] Where there’s a will there’s a way

91] What can you expect from a hog but a grunt?

92] Give a servant a rod, and he’ll beat his master

93] Calamity is man’s true touchstone

94] Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

95] It is easier to capture a tiger in the hills than to ask for favours from a man

96] Virtue is praised by all, but practiced by few

97] The ant had wings to her hurt

98] Better an apple given than eaten

99] A man may lose more in an hour than he can get in seven

100] Man cannot live by bread alone