Famous Proverbs

1] Better cut the shoe than pinch the foot

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

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

4] Confess and be hanged

5] Everything in moderation.

6] If your can’t help friend with money, help him at least with a sigh

7] Claw me, and I’ll claw thee

8] The owl thinks her own young fairest

9] Of the ten fingers, some are long and some are short.

10] The remedy for injuries is not to remember them

11] There is no royal road to learning

12] Valour would fight, but discretion would run away

13] He that lives ill, fear follows him

14] Wise men are caught in wiles

15] Dogs bark as they are bred.

16] Pardon makes offenders

17] Dreams go by contraries

18] He that keeps not crust not crumb, shall ever want some

19] Hunger makes hard bean sweet

20] Better be a fool than a knave

21] One barber shaves another gratis

22] So many men, so many opinions

23] When meat is in anger is out

24] He that never ate flesh, thinks a pudding is a dainty

25] Every man has his faults

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

27] Desperate diseases need (or must have) desperate cures

28] Fortune knocks once at every man’s door

29] Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it

30] Almost’ never killed a fly.

31] Necessity is mother of invention

32] Talk of an angel and you’ll hear the fluttering of his wings

33] It is good to follow the old fox

34] Might overcome right.

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

36] There’s no such thing as free as a free lunch

37] At open doors, dogs come in

38] In doing we learn.

39] Cast not the first stone.

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

41] Two midwives will twist the baby’s head

42] All meat pleases not all mouths

43] There is no blindness like ignorance

44] Virtue is the only true nobility

45] If the father is spotted, the son will be speckled

46] A cat has nine lives

47] Say as men say, but think to yourself.

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

49] The longest night will have an end

50] The bird is known by his note, the man by his words

51] Lightning never strikes twice in the same place

52] Like father, like son

53] One pair of heels is often worth two pairs of hands

54] He that goes a borrowing goes a-sorrowing

55] Be just before you are generous

56] The belly carries the legs

57] He that pities another remembers himself

58] You must lose a fly to catch a trout

59] Of evil manners, spring good laws

60] He that commits a fault, thinks everyone speaks of it.

61] Bear with evil and expect good

62] Wise men propose, and fools determine

63] An old horse knows the route

64] A horse that will not carry a saddle must have no oats.

65] A bad workman always blames his tools

66] Love is without reason

67] Scatter with one hand, gather with two

68] He that the devil drives, feels no lead at his heels

69] A little help is worth a deal of pity

70] Half the world knows not how the other half lives

71] Soon learnt, soon forgotten

72] The bee sucks honey out of the bitterest flowers

73] Fortune favours those who use their judgement

74] He who hesitates is lost

75] Laugh and grow fat

76] Spread the table, and contention will cease

77] If you wish good advice, consult an old man

78] He that will thrive, must rise at five; he that has thriven, may lie till seven; but he that will never thrive may lie till eleven

79] Four eyes see more than two

80] When misfortune sleeps, let no one wake her

81] You cannot put an old head on young shoulders.

82] Words are but wind

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

84] Master easy, servant slack

85] He that does most at once, does least

86] Names and natures do often agree

87] Silence is a woman’s best garment

88] Hunger finds no fault with the cookery

89] It is ill striving (or swimming) against the stream (or tide)

90] Busiest men find the most time

91] He daren’t say ‘boo’ to a goose

92] Words and feathers the wind carries away

93] A soft answer turns away wrath

94] He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance

95] Two wrongs do not make a right

96] Men make houses, women make homes

97] Virtue has all things in itself

98] A little is better than none

99] A wise man will learn something even from the words of a fool

100] Good advice is often annoying, bad advice never.