Famous Proverbs

1] Walls have ears

2] Soon hot, soon cold

3] It is too late to husband when all is spent

4] There is safety in numbers

5] It is not the hood that makes the monk.

6] Failure teaches success

7] A secret fire is discovered by the smoke

8] A watched pot never boils

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

10] Poverty is no disgrace but it is a great inconvenience

11] When a dwarf ascends a staircase, he gets higher every step

12] Fools grow without watering.

13] Small is beautiful

14] One man eats the jackfruit, another gets his hands sticky

15] Words have wings, and cannot be recalled

16] He cannot speak well that cannot hold his tongue

17] Money breeds (or makes, or begets) money

18] A man has choice to begin love, but not to end it.

19] Take time by the forelock

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

21] Spend not where you may save, spare not where you must spend

22] A wicked man is his own hell

23] Hope deferred makes the heart sick

24] They bow to you when borrowing; you bow to them when collecting

25] Friends are thieves of time

26] A pot that belongs to many is ill stirred and worse boiled

27] You eat, I dreams, the custard of the day

28] If today will not, tomorrow may

29] A good paymaster never wants workmen

30] Those who sell dog-meat often display a lamb’s head

31] Every dog has his (its) day

32] Think on the end before you begin

33] The race is got by running

34] One thief will not rob another

35] A wise man hears one word and understands two

36] The last suitor wins the maid

37] He that eats well should do his duty well

38] Might is right

39] Good luck beats early rising

40] A good anvil does not fear the hammer

41] A little is better than none

42] Jack would be a gentleman if he could speak French

43] All griefs with bread are less

44] Jackdaw always perches by jackdaw.

45] When bitterness reaches its extreme, sweetness will follow

46] The grapes are sour’, as the fox said when he could not reach them

47] Don’t meet trouble half-way

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

49] Sometimes the best gain is to lose

50] Fortune favours fools

51] Soft fire makes sweet malt

52] Pardoning the bad is injuring the good

53] Will is no skill

54] Open confession is good for the soul

55] It is all in the day’s work

56] Those that make the best use of their time, have none to spare

57] Give us the tools, and we will finish the job

58] He knows the water best who has waded through it

59] We live by laws, not by examples

60] Whether the pitcher strikes the stone, or the stone the pitcher, it is bad for the pitcher

61] The purse of the patient protracts the disease

62] The devil looks after his own

63] One potter envies another

64] An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains

65] He that burns most, shines most

66] You may know by a handful the whole sack

67] Lend, and lose the loan or gain an enemy

68] A fool may give a wise counsel. A fool’s bolt may sometimes hit the mark.

69] Soon learnt, soon forgotten

70] Pouring oil on the fire is not the way to quench it

71] Death is the grand leveler

72] Beggars must not (can’t) be choosers

73] If things were to be done twice, all would be wise.

74] As long lives a merry man as a sad

75] Learn to walk before you run

76] The anvil lasts longer than the hammer

77] Go to bed with the lamb, and rise with the lark

78] When a man is happy, he does not hear the clock strike

79] There grows no herb t heal a coward heart

80] Don’t bargain for fish which are still in the water

81] He laughs ill that laughs himself to death

82] Learning is the eye of the mind

83] A gift much expected is paid, not given

84] Let bygones be bygones

85] When the fox preaches, then beware your geese

86] There’s a black sheep in every flock

87] The longest way round is the shortest way home

88] Greedy eaters dig their graves with their teeth.

89] Better are small fish than an empty dish

90] Delays are not denials

91] Don’t quarrel with your bread and buffer

92] Don’t take your harp to the party

93] Better an apple given than eaten

94] Sadness and happiness succeed each other.

95] Health without money is half an ague

96] Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof

97] History repeats itself

98] Where the dam leaps over, the kid follows

99] Who hath a good trade, through all waters may wade

100] A rich man’s joke is always funny