Motivational Quotes

Proverbs

The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.

- Bacon, Francis

Best Quotes about Proverbs

A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.

German Proverb

A proverb is good sense brought to a point.

Morley, John

One kind word can warm three winter months.

Japanese proverb

It is not enough to aim; you must hit.

Italian Proverb

Ask about your neighbors, then buy the house.

Jewish Proverb

What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your mouth.

Jewish Proverb

Maxims and aphorisms, let us remember that wisdom is the true salt of literature, and the books that are most nourishing are richly stored with it, and that is the main object to seek in reading books.

Morely, John

Better be ill spoken of by one before all than by all before one.

Scottish Proverb

He that can't endure the bad, will not live to see the good.

Jewish Proverb

10.

They are like the clue in the labyrinth, or the compass in the night.

Joubert, Joseph

11.

Do not throw the arrow which will return against you.

Kurdish Proverb

12.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can't find.

Seneca

13.

He who would leap high must take a long run.

Danish Proverb

14.

Examine what is said, not him who speaks.

Arab Proverb

15.

If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.

Latin Proverb

16.

Proverbs are mental gems gathered in the diamond fields of the mind.

Alger, William R.

17.

A full cup must be carried steadily.

English Proverb

18.

A proverb is much matter distilled into few words.

Fuller, R. Buckminster

19.

Don't throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one holds water.

Swedish Proverb

20.

A smiling face is half the meal.

Latvian Proverb

21.

Complain to one who can help you.

Yugoslav Proverb

22.

I believe there's no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.

Cervantes, Miguel De

23.

Don't you go believing in sayings, Picotee: they are all made by men, for their own advantages. Women who use public proverbs as a guide through events are those who have not ingenuity enough to make private ones as each event occurs.

Hardy, Thomas

24.

When you have given nothing, ask for nothing.

Albanian Proverb

25.

When you drink the water, remember the spring.

Chinese Proverb

26.

Make your bargain before beginning to plow.

Arab Proverb

27.

Don't make use of another's mouth unless it has been lent to you.

Belgian Proverb

28.

Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.

Malayan Proverb

29.

A proverb is the child of experience.

Proverb, English

30.

Wait until it is night before saying that it has been a fine day.

French Proverb

31.

Who begins too much accomplishes little.

German Proverb

32.

Buy on the rumor; sell on the news.

Wall Street Proverb

33.

Keep five yards from a carriage, ten yards from a horse, and a hundred yards from an elephant; but the distance one should keep from a wicked man cannot be measured.

Indian Proverb

34.

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

Irish Proverb

35.

If you wish your merit to be known, acknowledge that of other people.

Oriental Proverb

36.

No people require maxims so much as the American. The reason is obvious: the country is so vast, the people always going somewhere, from Oregon apple valley to boreal New England, that we do not know whether to be temperate orchards or sterile climate.

Dahlberg, Edward

37.

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

Huxley, Aldous

38.

Don't fall before you're pushed.

English Proverb

39.

I can't make head or tail of Life. Love is a fine thing, Art is a fine thing, Nature is a fine thing; but the average human mind and spirit are confusing beyond measure. Sometimes I think that all our learning is the little learning of the maxim. To laugh at a Roman awe-stricken in a sacred grove is to laugh at something today.

Stevens, Wallace

40.

Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.

Slovenian Proverb

41.

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.

Chinese Proverb

42.

It is the part of a good shepherd to shear his flock, not to skin it.

Latin Proverb

43.

A proverb is not a proverb to you until life has illustrated it.

Keats, John

44.

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.

Chinese Proverb

45.

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

Chinese Proverb

46.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Chinese Proverb

47.

For proverbs are the pith, the proprieties, the proofs, the purities, the elegancies, as the commonest so the commendablest phrases of a language. To use them is a grace, to understand them a good.

Florio, John

48.

A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.

Dutch Proverb

49.

A proverb is one man's wit and all men's wisdom.

Russell, John

50.

How many of us have been attracted to reason; first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life, by some dazzling aphorism.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.