Famous Proverbs

1] A good conscience is a soft pillow

2] Words and feathers the wind carries away

3] The remedy for injuries is not to remember them

4] Least said, soonest mended

5] Little pitchers have big (or long) ears

6] Man does what he can, and God what he will

7] He is not laughed at the laughs at himself first

8] The effect speaks, the tongue need not

9] Let another’s shipwreck be you sea-mark.

10] It is good to follow the old fox

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

12] Everyone puts his fault on the times.

13] First catch your hare

14] Learn not and know not

15] Content is better than riches

16] Much travel is needed to ripen a man’s rawness

17] Poverty parts friendship

18] Appearances are deceptive

19] Words bind men

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

21] Choose neither women nor linen by candlelight.

22] Other times, other manners

23] Kindness to the good is better investment than kindness to the rich.

24] A learned man has always riches in himself

25] Nothing is given so freely as advice

26] Jack would be a gentleman if he had money

27] An ass must be tied where the master will have him

28] Alms never make poor

29] Venture a small fish to catch a great one.

30] Little things are great to little men

31] Like mistress, like maid

32] He that would the daughter win, must with the mother first begin

33] Even water has its ebb and flow

34] We have all been once in our life

35] Nothing is as good as it seems before hand

36] If there is no wind, the trees will not move

37] Trust is the mother of deceit

38] Ill news comes often on the back of worse

39] Poverty obstructs the road to virtue

40] It is too late to lock the stable when the horse has been stolen

41] Dreams are lies

42] He who wills the end, Wills the means

43] You never know your luck

44] Virtue has all things in itself

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

46] Easier said than done

47] Praise makes good men better and bad men worse

48] A good word stills great anger

49] Dirty linen should be washed at home

50] Life would be too smooth, if it has no rubs in it.

51] If you run after two hares, you will catch neither

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

53] Distance lends enchantment to the view

54] Children and fools cannot lie.

55] Man cannot live by bread alone

56] Follow love and it will flee thee; flee love and it will follow thee

57] III counsel mars all

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

59] Even reckoning makes long friends

60] Like will to like

61] Might knows no right

62] What the king wills, that the law wills

63] Might knows no right

64] Courtesy on one side never lasts long

65] A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle.

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

67] The little cannot be great unless he devours many

68] One is never too old to learn

69] A man may bear till his back breaks

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

71] Old cattle breed not

72] He that demands misses not, unless his demands be foolish

73] Anger restrained is wisdom gained

74] Comparisons make enemies of our friends.

75] A good Conscience is the best divinity

76] There is no time like the present

77] Love is lawless.

78] Industry is fortune’s right hand, and frugality her left

79] One drop of poison infects the whole tun of wine

80] Poverty does not hurt him who has not been rich before

81] Gold brings gold; lack of gold, a headache

82] There are more ways to kill a dog than hanging it.

83] Who receives a gift, sells his liberty

84] Misfortune does not always come to injure

85] What is worse than ill luck?

86] When in Rome, do as the Romans do

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

88] Hope keeps man alive

89] God comes at last when think he is farthest off

90] Content is more than a kingdom

91] There is nothing like being on the safe side

92] A fault once denied is twice committed

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

94] Hard words break no bones

95] Misfortune arrives on horseback but departs on foot

96] Seldom seen, soon forgotten

97] One master in a house is enough

98] The game is not worth the candle

99] The blind man is not afraid of ghosts

100] Everyone puts his fault on the times.