Famous Proverbs

1] Misfortune arrives on horseback but departs on foot

2] The absent saint gets no candle

3] A soft answer turns away wrath

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

5] If the cap fits, wear it

6] We should publish our joys and conceal our griefs

7] Make yourself all honey and the flies will devour you

8] If one will not, another will

9] Easter so longed for is gone in a day

10] Envy never enriched any man.

11] It foolish sheep that makes the wolf his confessor

12] He that burns most, shines most

13] It will be the same a hundred years hence

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

15] It is an ill bargain where no man wins

16] You cannot teach an old dog new tricks

17] Every deed is to be judges by the doer’s intention.

18] A thief passes for a gentle man when stealing has made him rich

19] The squeaking wheel gets the grease

20] Rats know the ways of rats

21] It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf his confessor

22] The best things are hard to come by.

23] There’s always room at the top

24] Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

25] When things are at the worst, they begin to mend

26] More haste, less speed

27] After dinner sit a while, after supper walk a mile.

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

29] The last straw breaks the camel’s back

30] Once a use and ever a custom

31] How ever much you learn, you won’t know how to raise the dead

32] Needs must when the evil drives

33] Actions speak louder than words

34] We don’t get something for nothing

35] Christmas comes but once a year

36] Patch by patch is good housewifery, but patch upon patch is plain beggary

37] Keep something for a rainy day

38] Call a spade a spade

39] When it rains porridge, the beggar has no spoon.

40] No tie can oblige the perfidious

41] Children and fools cannot lie.

42] Life is not all beer and skittles

43] Pride dines on vanity, sups on contempt

44] Sickness soaks the purse

45] Quarrels do not last long if the wrong is only on one side

46] There is no tree but bears some fruit

47] When someone gives up a peach, return him a plum

48] All must be as God will

49] Slender cannot make a good man bad; when the water recedes, the stone is still there.

50] No choice amongst stinking fish

51] No land without stones, or meat without bones

52] He that has a fellow-ruler, has an over-ruler. ¶ There is no good accord, where every man would be a lord

53] Everyone puts his fault on the times.

54] Courtesy (Or Civility, or Politeness) costs nothing

55] Don’t take your harp to the party

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

57] I saw few die of hunger; of eating, a hundred thousand.

58] As you bake, so shall you eat.

59] Nothing costs so much as what is given us

60] Give a fool (or a thief) enough rope and he will hang himself

61] The pen is the tongue of the hand

62] Do not triumph before the victory

63] Great minds think alike

64] There is nothing lost by civility

65] Light grows the burden which is well borne

66] Dumb dogs are dangerous

67] The unexpected always happens.

68] Necessity is a powerful weapon

69] God’s lambs will play.

70] White there’s life there’s hope

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

72] You cannot serve God and Mammon

73] He who works before dawn will soon his own master

74] Neither praise nor dispraise thyself; thy actions serve the turn

75] A piece of churchyard fits every body

76] He who teaches learns

77] The hunchback does not see his own hump, but his companion’s

78] The best remedy against an ill man, is much ground between

79] After a dream of a wedding, comes a corpse

80] Necessity breaks iron

81] He that would know what shall be, must consider what has been

82] If one will not, another will

83] He that would catch fish must venture his bait

84] Of two evils choose the lesser

85] Lookers-on see more than players

86] Better are small fish than an empty dish

87] Men are known by the company they keep.

88] What you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts

89] No, thank you’ has lost you many a good butter-cake

90] Riches along make no men happy

91] A man may say too much, even up on the best subjects

92] Clothes do not make the man

93] None but the brave deserves the fair

94] Where bad’s the best, bad must be the choice

95] Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.

96] A constant guest is never welcome

97] He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning

98] His own ingenuity pricks him.

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

100] He who peeps through a hole, may see what will vex him