Famous Proverbs

1] Keep something for a rainy day

2] So many countries, so many customs

3] Choose thy company before thy drink

4] Procrastination is the thief of time

5] Findings are keepings

6] The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world

7] Don’t hallo (or shout, or whistle) until you are out of the wood

8] A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

9] An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

10] The wisest of the wise may err.

11] What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own

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

13] It is easier to pour away water than to gather it.

14] Easy come, easy go

15] Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them

16] A man’s best fortune, or his worst, is a wife

17] Better to wear out than rust out

18] When all men say you are an ass, it is time to bray

19] Nothing costs so much as what is given us

20] The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak

21] Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!

22] Riches rather enlarge than satisfy appetites

23] The best things carried to excess are wrong

24] Faint heart never won fair lady

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

26] You may know by a handful the whole sack

27] Much would have more

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

29] He that ventures not fails not.

30] In everything consider the end

31] If the wise erred not, it would go hard with fools.

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

33] Work expands so as to fill the time available

34] What is the good of a sundial in the shade?

35] Haste makes waste

36] Ready money is ready medicine

37] It is useless to flog a dead horse

38] It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good

39] Our worst misfortunes are those which never befall us

40] Don’t kick against the pricks

41] The end crowns the work.

42] Not good is it to harp on the frayed string

43] To teach is to learn twice over

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

45] Misery acquaints men with strange bedfellows

46] Small is beautiful

47] Time and tide wait for no man

48] Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

49] No man can serve two masters

50] Remember, you are but a man

51] Long roads test the horse; long dealings test the friend

52] They that value not praise, will never do anything worthy of praise

53] Punishment is a cripple, but it arrives

54] Fools grow without watering.

55] The king can do no wrong

56] T’ is safest making peace with sword in hand

57] In all the weeding cake, hope is the sweetest plum.

58] If the devil finds a man idle, he’ll set him to work

59] Wives must be had, be they good or bad

60] Names and natures do often agree

61] Jack is as good as his master

62] The hero appears only when the tiger is dead

63] Small is the seed of every greatness

64] Manners make the man

65] A fool and his money are soon parted

66] All things are easy, that are done willingly

67] Covetousness is the root of all evil

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

69] Flesh is frail

70] The bull must be taken by the horns

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

72] Care is no cure

73] The mouse that has but one hole is quickly taken

74] Sooner begun, sooner done

75] Pitchers have ears

76] A good conscience is a sure card

77] Lightning never strikes twice in the same place

78] Too much hope deceives

79] Never too late to repent

80] One thief will not rob another

81] One man sows and another reaps

82] A man’s studies pass in to his character

83] He that repairs not a part, builds all

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

85] Wise men do not argue with idiots

86] No man knows what good is than he who has endured evil

87] Even the grubs in the rocks manage to survive

88] Liars should have good memories

89] Who repairs not his gutter, repairs his whole house

90] Learning is like sailing against the tide - if you don’t move forward, you go backward

91] Ale will make a cat speak

92] Know thyself

93] A blister will rise upon one’s tongue that tells a lie

94] Charity excuseth not cheating.

95] A good Jack makes a good Jill.

96] The anvil lasts longer than the hammer

97] The effect speaks, the tongue need not

98] Slow and steady wins the race

99] Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth

100] Even fools sometimes speak to the purpose