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French Proverbs (401-500)

No feast like a miser's.

There's not enough if there's not too much.

In the end it will be known who ate the bacon.

Fair and softly goes far.

Envy goes beyond avarice.

Everything does not fall that totters.

The hen's eyes are with her chickens.

Children are what they are made.

A pleasant companion on a journey
is as good as a post chaise.

Beware of a reconciled enemy.

Wine poured out is not wine swallowed.

The wolf is not so big as people make him.

One cannot please everybody and one's father.

He who fears to suffer, suffers from fear.

Everything goes to him who does not want it.

A great estate is not gotten in a few hours.

The most covered fire is always the most glowing.

The more fools, the more laughter.

Flies are easier caught with honey than with vinegar.

Vanity has no greater foe than vanity.

There's virtue in a man's face.

Everyone has a fool in his sleeve.

Flies will not light on a boiling pot.

Don't teach fishes to swim.

A woman laughs when she can,
and weeps when she pleases.

Witticisms spare no one.

What comes from the fife goes back to the drum.

He fishes on who catches one.

Never challenge a fool to do wrong.

He who carried one burden will soon carry a hundred.

One foot is better than two stilts.

Children and fools are prophets.

He who has a companion has a master.

Don't put your finger into too tight a ring.

The beaten pay the fine.

A fool cuts himself with his own knife.

Every fool likes his bauble.

A muffled cat never caught a mouse.

There's no showing the wolf to a bad dog.

A woman who accepts, sells herself;
a woman who gives, surrenders.

A fool is always beginning.

Fortune can take from us only what she has given us.

Though the fool waits, the day does not.

A clear conscience is a good pillow.

There is no chapel so small but has its saint.

Tired folks are quarrelsome.

It won't do to trifle with fire.

He is a great fool who forgets himself.

If you cannot say it, point to it with your finger.

One fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.

He is a fool who makes his physician his heir.

A woman who looks much in the mirror spins but little.

Much worship, much cost.

He is a fool who makes a mallet of his fist.

There is no flavor in a swallowed morsel.

He has enough who is content.

For a stubborn ass a stubborn driver.

Never put your finger between the tree and the bark.

The fool hunts for misfortune.

The shortest follies are the best.

Fools go in throngs.

Fools invent fashions and wise men follow them.

The fool who is silent passes for wise.

Let him who is cold blow the fire.

Every one takes his flogging in his own way.

Wishes never filled the bag.

Since the wine is drawn it must be drunk.

Company in distress makes trouble less.

There is no bush so small but casts its shadow.

When glory comes memory departs.

Rich garments weep on unworthy shoulders.

A fine girl and a tattered gown always
find something to hook them.

It is well to leave off playing when the game is at its best.

Foxes come at last to the furrier's.

A table friend is changeable.

The most friendly fortune trips up your heels.

Soon gained soon squandered.

He cannot be a friend to any one who is his own enemy.

A hundred years of fretting will not pay a halfpenny of debt.

The little alms are the good alms.

He who carries nothing loses nothing.

If wishes were true, shepherds would be kings.

A woman and a melon are hard to choose.

A good fox does not eat his neighbor's fowls

He never was a friend who has ceased to be one.

He who does not gain loses.

He that holds the handle of the frying pan
runs the risk of burning himself.

A little gall spoils a great deal of honey.

He has enough to do who holds the handle of the frying pan.

It is always well to keep hold of your horse's bridle.

The friendship of great men is like the
shadow of a bush-soon gone.

All truths are not good to be uttered.

Much kindred, much trouble.

A fine cage won't feed the bird.

He who judges between two friends loses one of them.

A woman conceals only what she does not know.

After the act, wishing is in vain.

He pays for the glases who breaks them.

Gentleness does more than violence.

Nothing falls into the mouth of a sleeping fox.

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