Motivational Quotes

Proverbs

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

- Carlyle, Thomas

Best Quotes about Proverbs

Ask about your neighbors, then buy the house.

Jewish Proverb

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

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

Buy on the rumor; sell on the news.

Wall Street Proverb

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

A full cup must be carried steadily.

English Proverb

Keep your broken arm inside your sleeve.

Chinese Proverb

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

Bulgarian Proverb

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

Chinese Proverb

10.

Although none of the rules for becoming more alive is valid, it is healthy to keep on formulating them.

Sontag, Susan

11.

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.

12.

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

Japanese Proverb

13.

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

Scottish Proverb

14.

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

15.

If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot.

Italian Proverb

16.

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

Keats, John

17.

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

Swedish Proverb

18.

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

19.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

20.

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

Dutch Proverb

21.

One kind word can warm three winter months.

Japanese proverb

22.

Worries go down better with soup than without.

Jewish Proverb

23.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

24.

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

25.

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

Chinese Proverb

26.

Examine what is said, not him who speaks.

Arab Proverb

27.

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

Russell, John

28.

A proverb is good sense brought to a point.

Morley, John

29.

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

Swedish Proverb

30.

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

Czech Proverb

31.

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

Malayan Proverb

32.

Make your bargain before beginning to plow.

Arab Proverb

33.

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

Malayan Proverb

34.

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

35.

Hold a true friend with both hands.

Nigerian Proverb

36.

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

Scandinavian Proverb

37.

Do not throw the arrow which will return against you.

Kurdish Proverb

38.

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

Jewish Proverb

39.

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

40.

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.

Cervantes, Miguel De

41.

Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law.

Japanese Proverb

42.

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

Jewish Proverb

43.

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

Latin Proverb

44.

It is not enough to aim; you must hit.

Italian Proverb

45.

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

46.

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

Joubert, Joseph

47.

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Japanese Proverb

48.

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

Spanish Proverb

49.

The palest ink is better than the best memory.