Famous Proverbs

1] Better die a beggar than live a beggar

2] Ill weeds grow apace (or fast)

3] A quarrelsome man has no good neighbours

4] A guilty conscience needs no accuser

5] He is not poor that has little, but he that desires much

6] Drive thy business or it will drive thee.

7] Had I fish’ was never good with garlic

8] An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth

9] Catch your bear before you sell its skin

10] One is not smelt where all stink

11] Revenge is sweet

12] Pardon makes offenders

13] As you bake, so shall you eat.

14] It is all in the day’s work

15] Hope is the poor man’s bread

16] Promises may make friends, but it is performances that keep them

17] Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves

18] They that dance must pay the fiddler

19] It is easy to move rivers and mountains, but difficult to change a person’s basic nature

20] Vows made in storms are forgotten in calm

21] Set a wolf to keep the sheep

22] Catch not at the shadow and lose the substance

23] Pleasant hours fly past

24] There are hills, and there are swamps as well.

25] A successful man is seldom at ease; a life of ease does not breed success

26] Don’t teach your grandmother how to suck eggs

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

28] What costs little is little esteemed

29] He that sows thistles shall reap prickles.

30] You may lead (or take) a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink

31] Prospect is often better than possession

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

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

34] If you would be well served, serve yourself

35] Wait’ is a hard word to the hungry.

36] It is ill jesting with edged tools

37] It is not work that kills but worry

38] The darkest hour is that before the dawn

39] One reason is as good as fifty

40] A jug that has been mended lasts two hundred years

41] Know when to spend and when to spare, and you need not be busy, you’ll never be bare

42] No garden without its weeds.

43] The tongue breaks bone, and herself has none

44] Ill news comes unsent for.

45] Too many cooks spoil the broth

46] Where there is no trust there is no love

47] Law cannot persuade where it cannot punish

48] Don’t play with fire

49] Fortune is blind

50] To know the husband, observe the face of the wife

51] Curses, like chickens, come home to roost

52] So many men, so many opinions

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

54] He that sings on Friday, will weep on Sunday

55] The worse the evil, the calmer we face it.

56] Young colts will canter.

57] God helps those who help themselves

58] Dumb men get no lands

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

60] Shrouds have no pockets

61] The proof of the pudding lies in the eating

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

63] Kindle not a fire that you cannot extinguish

64] Judge not the tree by its bark

65] It is a hard-fought field where no man escapes unkilled

66] What cannot gold do?

67] Man punishes the action but God the intention

68] A swine over-fat, is the cause of his own bane

69] The end makes all equal

70] When a man grows angry, his reason rides out.

71] At open doors, dogs come in

72] We don’t get something for nothing

73] The pot calls the kettle black

74] Half a loaf is better than do bread

75] Tigers and deer do not over.

76] It costs more to do ill than to do well

77] A wise man changes his mind, a fool never.

78] What may be done at any time is done at no time

79] For a web begun, God sends the thread

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

81] You cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds

82] A growing youth has a wolf in his belly

83] A wounded reputation is seldom cured

84] Love delights in praise

85] The ass loaded with gold still eats thistles

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

87] Precept begins, examples accomplish

88] Necessity is mother of invention

89] Fair exchange is no robbery

90] Every cloud has a silver lining

91] There is no place like home

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

93] It is ill sitting at Rome and striving against the pope

94] Everything in moderation.

95] Be just before you are generous

96] Forewarned is forearmed

97] Poor men’s words have little weight

98] Love is sweet torment

99] All are not saints that go to church

100] The balance distinguishes not between gold and lead