Motivational Quotes

Proverbs

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

- Bacon, Francis

Best Quotes about Proverbs

Don't be sweet, lest you be eaten up; don't be bitter, lest you be spewed out.

Jewish Proverb

Never give a child a sword.

Latin Proverb

Take hold lightly; let go lightly. This is one of the great secrets of felicity in love.

Spanish Proverb

Drink nothing without seeing it; sign nothing without reading it.

Spanish Proverb

A proverb is good sense brought to a point.

Morley, John

A collections of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest of treasures for the man of the world, for he knows how to intersperse conversation with the former in fit places, and to recollect the latter on proper occasions.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Japanese Proverb

Worries go down better with soup than without.

Jewish Proverb

10.

A smiling face is half the meal.

Latvian Proverb

11.

The big thieves hang the little ones.

Czech Proverb

12.

It is not enough to aim; you must hit.

Italian Proverb

13.

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

14.

When you drink the water, remember the spring.

Chinese Proverb

15.

If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be made straight when you are dry.

African Proverb

16.

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.

Chinese Proverb

17.

Keep your broken arm inside your sleeve.

Chinese Proverb

18.

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

Chinese Proverb

19.

Don't stay long when the husband is not at home.

Japanese Proverb

20.

A proverb is much matter distilled into few words.

Fuller, R. Buckminster

21.

Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.

Spanish Proverb

22.

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.

Cervantes, Miguel De

23.

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

24.

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

Latin Proverb

25.

He who would leap high must take a long run.

Danish Proverb

26.

Hold a true friend with both hands.

Nigerian Proverb

27.

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

28.

There is often more spiritual force in a proverb than in whole philosophical systems.

Carlyle, Thomas

29.

If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot.

Italian Proverb

30.

Make sure to be in with your equals if you're going to fall out with your superiors.

Jewish Proverb

31.

Praise youth and it will prosper.

Irish Proverb

32.

One kind word can warm three winter months.

Japanese proverb

33.

Trumpet in a herd of elephants; crow in the company of cocks; bleat in a flock of goats.

Malayan Proverb

34.

The reverse side also has a reverse side.

Japanese Proverb

35.

What is a epigram? A dwarfish whole. Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

36.

Do not remove a fly from your friend's forehead with a hatchet.

Chinese Proverb

37.

Do not throw the arrow which will return against you.

Kurdish Proverb

38.

He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

Johnson, Samuel

39.

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

Chinese Proverb

40.

Do not employ handsome servants.

Chinese Proverb

41.

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

Jewish Proverb

42.

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

Chinese Proverb

43.

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

Swedish Proverb

44.

Make your bargain before beginning to plow.

Arab Proverb

45.

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

Jewish Proverb

46.

Go often to the house of thy friend; for weeds soon choke up the unused path.

Scandinavian Proverb

47.

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

Latin Proverb

48.

When you have given nothing, ask for nothing.

Albanian Proverb

49.

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.

Chinese Proverb

50.

Until a friend or relative has applied a particular proverb to your own life, or until you've watched him apply the proverb to his own life, it has no power to sway you.

Baker, Nicholson