Famous Proverbs

1] He who spends before he thrives will beg before he thinks

2] Debt is an evil conscience

3] That voyage never has luck where each one has a vote.

4] If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas

5] To study a great deal is to acquire a priceless treasure

6] Love delights in praise

7] If fortune turns against you, even jelly breaks your tooth

8] A trouble shared is a trouble halved.

9] He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow

10] None can guess the jewel by the casket

11] Truth is mighty and will prevail

12] When a fool is sent to market, the storekeepers rejoice

13] Man punishes the action but God the intention

14] Bad news travels fast

15] Company in misery makes it light

16] Marriage halves our griefs, doubles our joys and quadruples our expenses

17] You cannot get blood (or water) out of a stone

18] A fool says what he knows, and a wise man knows what he says.

19] A cat has nine lives

20] Never judge from appearances

21] Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee.

22] Better say noting than no to the purpose

23] Before you marry, be sure of a house wherein to tarry

24] Make the best of a bad job

25] No like is the same.

26] Our neighbour’s ground yields better corn than ours

27] First catch your hare

28] There is nothing lost by civility

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

30] A cat may look at a king

31] She’s her father’s (or mother’s) daughter

32] Hope is the last thing to abandon the unhappy

33] Better no doctor at all than three.

34] Common fame is seldom to blame

35] Anger managers everything badly.

36] Sickness soaks the purse

37] Do as say, not as I do

38] It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest

39] Some have been thought brave because they are afraid to run away

40] Fish and guests smell in three days

41] The soldier who retreated fifty paces laughed at the one who had fallen back a hundred paces

42] As you sow, so shall you reap

43] It is easy to find a stick to beat a dog

44] A hungry man is angry man

45] Good words are worth much and cost little

46] He stands not surely that never slips

47] The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence

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

49] He who last, laughs longest.

50] You win some, you lose some

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

52] It never rains it pours

53] Let every pedlar carry his own burden

54] Forbidden fruit is sweetest

55] Submitting to one wrong brings on another.

56] Rome was not (or cannot be) built in a day

57] Fling dirt enough, and some will stick

58] It is safer to hear and take counsel, than give it.

59] As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamp

60] Vice is often clothed in virtue’s habit

61] Hazard not your wealth on a poor man’s advice

62] Two wrongs do not make a right

63] Take the tone of the company you are in

64] If we have not the world’s wealth, we have the world’s ease

65] If the thorn falls, the leaf is pierced; if the leaf falls the leaf is pierced

66] The more laws, the more offenders

67] Courtesy on one side never lasts long

68] A ragged colt may make a good horse.

69] A dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees the farther of the two

70] Forewarned is forearmed

71] One is not smelt where all stink

72] Files are easier caught with honey than with vinegar

73] With wealth, you are as grand as a dragon; without wealth you are as insignificant as a worm.

74] Hope for the best and prepare for the worst

75] Wise men learn by other men’s harm, fools, by their own

76] Shrouds have no pockets

77] Hunger is the teacher of many

78] Penny and penny laid up will be many

79] Gold may be bought too dear

80] The world is full of fools

81] The leopard cannot change its spots

82] Variety is the spice of life

83] Keep no more cats than will catch mice

84] Comparisons are odious

85] If you do not enter a tiger’s den, you cannot get its cubs

86] The end makes all equal

87] Gifts blind the eyes.

88] Hope deferred makes the heart sick

89] Who is more busy than he that has least to do?

90] He who cannot bear misfortune is truly unfortunate.

91] Don’t cut the bough you are standing on

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

93] If the doctor cures, the sun sees it; but if he kills, the earth hides it.

94] Don’t take a bull in to a china shop.

95] A cheerful wife is the joy of life

96] Health and wealth create beauty

97] The best of friends must part

98] Hunger drives the wolf out of the wood

99] There is none misfortune cannot reach

100] Of a new prince, new bondage