Pages

English Proverbs (3701-3800)

You may take a horse to the water but you can't make him drink.

He has a good judgment that relies not wholly on his own.

The eye and religion can bear no jesting.

Patience is the best remedy.

He that pays another remembers himself.

Pity is but one remove from love.

Remove an old tree and it will die.

An empty purse is the devil.

Anger is the sworn enemy.

The falling out of friends is the renewal of love.

Plough or plough not, you must pay your rent.

He that repairs not a part, builds all.

He that knows little often repeats it.

That may be done in an hour which we may repent all our life after.

The tongue of idle persons is never idle.

An idle youth, a needy age.

The face came before the photograph.

The still sow eats up all the draff.

Never too late to repent.

The nearer the bone the sweeter the flesh.

The resolved mind has no cares.

Desire has no rest.

Three are too many to keep a secret, and too few to be merry.

Better prevent an evil than attend it.

Thrift is a good revenue.

Every shoe fits not every foot.

When everyone takes care of himself, care is taken of all.

Subjects and wives, when they revolt from their
lawful sovereigns, seldom choose for a better.

A shrew is better than a sheep.

Virtue is its own reward.

Desert and reward seldom keep company.

It is merry when gossips meet.

Many the man be damned and never grow fat
who wears two faces under one hat.

Few words are best.

He that speaks well fights well.

Truth filters through the stone.

Better a finger off than always aching.

One shoe will not fit all feet.

The eagle does not catch flies.

A fool is busy in every one's business but his own.

A woman's advice is a poor thing,
but he is a fool who does not take it.

Children and fools speak the truth.

A penny in the purse is better than a friend at court.

What God will, no frost can kill.

He is a fool that forgets himself.

There is but one good mother-in-law and she is dead.

Wisdom is a good purchase, though we pay dear for it.

Evil gotten, evil kept.

The great and the little have need of one another.

Idleness is the greatest prodigality.

You can have no more of a cat than her skin.

Better fill a glutton's belly than his eyes.

He that hopes not for good fears not evil.

Motions are not marriages.

Diseases are the price of ill pleasures.

Sparing is a rich purse.

An ass pricked must needs trot.

The willing horse is always most ridden.

Fire and pride cannot be hid.

A work ill done must be done twice.

A swine too fat, is the cause of his own bane.

Dogs bark more from custom than fierceness.

He deserves not sweet that will not taste of sour.

The greatest hate springs from the greatest love.

Better late ripe and bear, than early blossom and blast.

Old age is ripeness.

In vain they rise early that used to rise late.

Better to go to bed supperless than to rise in debt.

In every country the sun rises in the morning.

One must risk to win.

He is not charitable that will not be so privately.

All rivers do what they can for the sea.

A maid that gives yields.

He loses many a good bit that strives with his betters.

Grass grows not upon the highway, nor in the marketplace.

The world is a ladder for some to go up and some down.

Pity without relief is like mustard without beef.

Kindness, like grain, increase by sowing.

Little avails wealth, where there is no health.

Love your relations, but live not near them.

A gift long waited for is sold not given.

It is a bad bargain where both are losers.

Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.

The cat in gloves catches no mice.

A dog is made fat in two meals.

He that makes himself a sheep shall be eaten by the wolf.

Love is sweet torment.

The belly hates a long sermon.

There are more ways to the wood than one.

There is more hope of a fool than of him that is wise in his own eyes.

In doing we learn.

The world was not made in a day.

Sell nothing on trust.

Rome All roads lead to Rome.

There's reason in roasting of eggs.

Chance is no robbery.

There's no harm in robbing Peter if you pay Paul with it.

The prodigal robs his heir, the miser himself.

Small circumstances produce great events.

Proffered service stinks.

❖❖❖