Motivational Quotes

Proverbs

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

- Chinese Proverb

Best Quotes about Proverbs

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

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

Malayan Proverb

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

Oriental Proverb

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

Spanish Proverb

Who begins too much accomplishes little.

German Proverb

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

A full cup must be carried steadily.

English Proverb

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

Seize opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind.

Bulgarian Proverb

10.

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

Jewish Proverb

11.

Make your bargain before beginning to plow.

Arab Proverb

12.

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

Jewish Proverb

13.

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

Belgian Proverb

14.

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.

15.

Buy on the rumor; sell on the news.

Wall Street Proverb

16.

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

17.

Don't let your sorrow come higher than your knees.

Swedish Proverb

18.

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

Malayan Proverb

19.

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

Dutch Proverb

20.

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Japanese Proverb

21.

Never give a child a sword.

Latin Proverb

22.

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

Latin Proverb

23.

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

Chinese Proverb

24.

The best armor is to keep out of range.

Italian Proverb

25.

A proverb is good sense brought to a point.

Morley, John

26.

Raise your sail one foot and you get ten feet of wind.

Chinese Proverb

27.

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

28.

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

Chinese Proverb

29.

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

30.

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.

Chinese Proverb

31.

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

Swedish Proverb

32.

A proverb is the child of experience.

Proverb, English

33.

A smiling face is half the meal.

Latvian Proverb

34.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

35.

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

Huxley, Aldous

36.

The reverse side also has a reverse side.

Japanese Proverb

37.

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

38.

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

African Proverb

39.

When you go to buy, use your eyes, not your ears.

Czech Proverb

40.

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

Japanese Proverb

41.

Praise youth and it will prosper.

Irish Proverb

42.

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

Chinese Proverb

43.

One kind word can warm three winter months.

Japanese proverb

44.

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

Spanish Proverb

45.

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

46.

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

Joubert, Joseph

47.

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

48.

If you want to be respected, you must respect yourself.

Spanish Proverb

49.

Ask about your neighbors, then buy the house.

Jewish Proverb

50.

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

Jewish Proverb