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Dutch Proverbs (501-533)

Heavy purses and light hearts can sustain much.

Promises make debts, and debts make promises.

In prosperity think of adversity.

Everyone is a preacher under the gallows.

Who serves the public serves a fickle master.

One quill is better in the hand than
seven geese upon the strand.

There is a fool to every feast.

Great fish break the net.

All are not princes who ride with the emperor.

God gives birds their food, but they must fly for it.

After rain comes fair weather.

A brilliant daughter makes a brittle wife.

The nail suffers as much as the hole.

A kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt.

Those who do not know how to squander their money
– buy some porcelain and drop it.

Where the minute hand suffices, the hour hand is not needed.

God gives birds their food, but they must fly for it.

One cannot grab a bald man by the hair.

Dogs have teeth in all countries.

When the dog is down, everyone is ready to bite him.

Two dogs seldom agree over one bone.

He who goes to bed with dogs will get up with fleas.

Barking dogs don’t bite.

A dog with a bone knows no friend.

Better have a dog for your friend than your enemy.

Wake not a sleeping dog.

Who wants to beat a dog, soon finds a stick.

When two dogs fight for a bone, the third runs away with it.

Caress your dog, and he’ll spoil your clothes.

It is hard to teach old dogs to bark.

Great talkers are little doers.

Don’t cry herrings till they are in the net.

Nobody’s sweetheart is ugly.

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