BOOK OF

PROVERBS

Compiled by
R.S. Sumathi

B
D C Books
 English Language
Book of Proverbs
Compiled by R.S. Sumathi

© D C Books/Rights Reserved
First Edition August 2006
First E-book Edition November 2010

Cover Design
George

Publishers
D C Books, Kottayam 686 001
Kerala State, India
website : www.dcbooks.com
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nor the editors/compilers can accept any liability for any consequence arising from the
information contained therein. The publisher will be grateful for any information, which
will assist them in keeping future editions up to date.

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or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978-81-264-3688-0

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 CONTENTS

Ability, Abnormal, Absence, Abuses, Accident, Achieve, Acquaintance, Action,

Admiration, Adversity, Advertising, Advice, Affliction, Age, Alcohol, Ambition,
Anger, Animals, Anticipation, Appearance, Appetite, Argument, Arrogant, Art,
Asking, Aspiration, Ass, Associate, Authority

Baby, Bachelor, Badness, Bargain, Beauty, Bed, Beggar, Beginning, Belief, Best,
Bird, Blessings, Blood, Bone, Book, Borrowing, Boy, Brave, Bread, Building,
Business, Bull, Buy

Calm, Candle, Carelessness, Cat, Caution, Change, Character, Charity, Children,

Choosing, Citizenship, Cleverness, Climb, Clothes, Common sense, Community,
Company/Companionship, Complaints, Compromise, Confession, Conflict,
Confusion, Conscience, Contempt, Contentment, Conversation, Corruption,
Country, Courage, Courtesy, Cowardice, Credit, Credibility/Credulity, Crime,
Criticism, Cross, Cruelty, Cunning, Curiosity, Custom, Cut

Danger, Daydream, Death, Debt, Deceit, Deeds, Defamation, Delay, Deserving,

Desire, Despair, Destiny, Determination, Devil, Dignity, Differences, Discipline,
Discretion, Disease, Distance, Distrust, Doctor, Door, Doubt, Dream, Drinking,
Drop

Ear, Early, Eating, Education, Efficiency, Effort, End, Endurance, Enemy, Envy,
Equality, Example, Exceptions, Excess, Excuse, Exercise, Experience, Eyes 34-38

Face, Fact, Fair, Fair play, Fame, Familiarity, Family, Fashion, Fate, Fear, Fine arts,
Flattery, Food, Foolishness, Foresight, Forgiveness, Fortune, Freedom, Friends

Gain, Gambling, Genius, Gentility, Gift, Giving, Gluttony, God, Good, Goodness,
Gossip, Gratitude, Greatness, Greed, Guilt

Habit, Hair, Half, Hanging, Happiness, Haste/Hastness, Hatred, Head, Health,

Heat, Heaven and Hell, Help, Heredity, History, Home, Honesty, Honour, Hope,
Hospitality, House, Humbleness, Hunger, Hypocrisy

Idleness, If, Ignorance, Imperfection, Impossibility, Inconvenience, Industry,

Inspiration
Jesting, Judge, Justice
Kill, Kindness, Knowledge

Lamb, Laughter, Law, Lawyer, Leadership, Learning, Lending, Liberty, Lie, Life,
Likeness, Listening, Lose, Love, Loyalty, Luck, Lust

Man, Manners, Marriage, Miserliness, Misery, Misfortune, Moderation, Money,

Months, Music

Names, Nature, Necessity, Negligence, Neighbours, News, Night, Noble 64-766

Obedience, Occupations, Old Age, Opportunity, Optimism

Parents, Pain, Passion, Past, Patience, Paying, Peace, Pen, People, Perseverance,
Philosophy, Pity, Pleasure, Poet, Policy, Politeness, Politics, Position, Possession,
Poverty, Practice, Praise, Prayer, Prejudice, Pride, Procrastination, Promise,
Proverbs, Punctuality

Quality, Quarrelling, Question, Quiet, Quick

Rashness, Reading, Reality, Reason, Regret/Repentance, Relations, Religion,

Remedies, Responsibility, Retribution, Revenge, Reverence, Right and Wrong,
Rumours

Sacrifice, Safety, Scepticism, Save/Saving, Seasons, Self, Self-control, Servants, Shame,

Sickness, Silence, Similarity, Skill, Sleep, Small things, Snobs, Solitude, Solutions,
Sorrow, Speech, Spending, Sports, Strength, Success, Suffering, Suspicion

Talk, Taste, Teacher, Temptation, Thieving, Thought, Thrift, Time, Toleration,

Tongue, Travel, Trouble - making, Trust, Truth

Uncertainty, Understanding, Unity, Use

Vain, Vanity, Variety, Vengeance, Vice, Virtue

War, Weakness, Wealth, Weather, Wife, Will, Wisdom, Wish, Women, Wonder,
Words, Work, World, Worry, Worth, Writing

Youth

Zeal, Zero
 ABILITY
1. Without luck ability is nothing.
2. Ability is of little account without opportunity.
3. Ability turns great troubles into little ones and little ones into
none at all. (Chinese)
4. Behind the able man there are always other able men. (Chinese)
5. Everyone must row with the oars he has. (English)

ABNORMAL
1. Abnormal creatures do abnormal things.

ABSENCE
1. Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones.
2. Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.
3. Friends agree best at a distance.
4. Separation secures manifest friendship.
5. Long absence changes a friend.
6. When the cat’s away, the mice will play.
7. If a person is away, his right is away.
8. Out of sight, out of mind
9. Long absent, soon forgotten.
10. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

ABUSES
1. Abuses are hard to bear.

ACCIDENT
1. Accidents are outstanding effects.
2. Accidents will occur in the best regulated families.
 ACHIEVE
1. Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have
greatness thrust upon them.
2. Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.

ACQUAINTANCE
1. Short acquaintance brings repentance.
2. Have but a few friends, though many acquaintances.
3. If a man does not make new acquaintances through life, he will
soon find himself alone.

ACTION
1. Action speaks louder than words.
2. Better wear out than rust out.
3. Deliberation is the work of many men, action of one alone.
4. All actions are judged by the motives prompting them.
5. Successful action tends to become an end in itself.
6. Barking dogs seldom bite.
7. Doing is better than saying.
8. Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.
9. Action is the proper fruit of knowledge.
10. Actions speak louder than words.
11. Do wrong once you’ll never hear the end of it.
12. Man punishes action but good intention.
13. Talk doest not cook rice. (Chinese)
14. The good intention excuses the bad action.
15. There is a great distance between said and done. (Puerto Rican)

ADMIRATION
1. Distance is a great promoter of admiration.
2. Fools admire, but men of sense approve.
3. Fools favour flattery; flattery favours fools.
4. Admiration is a necessary feeling for an incipient love. (Chinese)
 ADVERSITY
1. Between the mouth and the morsel many things may happen.
2. Adversity makes a man wise, not rich.
3. Trouble brings experience and experience brings wisdom.
4. The wind in one’s face makes one wise.
5. Adversity makes strange bedfellows.
6. Woes unite foes.
7. Adversity is the touchstone of virtue.
8. Adversity comes with instruction in its hand.
9. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
10. If there were no clouds we should not enjoy the sun.

ADVERTISING
1. Any publicity is good publicity.
2. It pays to advertise.

ADVICE
1. Good counsel has no price.
2. We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
3. A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.
4. Ill counsel mars all.
5. Advice when most needed is least heeded.
6. Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it
not at present.
7. Too much consulting confounds.
8. If you wish good advice, consult an old man.
9. The egg shows the hen the place where to hatch.
10. A woman’s advice is no great thing, but he who won’t take it is a
fool.
11. Advice whispered in the ear is not worth a tare.
12. It is as hard to follow good advice as to give it.
13. Give neither counsel nor salt till you are asked for it.
14. Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.
15. He that thatches his house with turds shall have more teachers
than reachers.
16. He that has no children brings them up well.
17. He that has not wife, beats her oft.
18. He who takes his own advice must suffer the consequences. (Mexi­
can)

AFFLICTION
1. The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected
without trials. (Chinese)

AGE
1. Age considers, youth ventures.
2. A man at five may be a fool at fifteen.
3. A man as he manages himself, may die old at thirty or young at
eighty.
4. An old dog will learn no tricks.
5. An old fox needs no craft.
6. He lives long that lives well. He that corrects not youth controls
not age.

ALCOHOL
1. A cask of wine works more miracles than a church full of saints.
2. A good drink makes the old young.
3. He who drinks a little too much drinks much too much.
4. When the wine is in, the wit is out.
5. Bacchus has drowned more men than Neptune.
6. First the man takes the drink, then the drink takes the drink, then
the drink takes the man.
7. Play, women and wine undo men laughing.
8. There is truth in wine.
9. When wine sinks words swim.
10. Wine and wealth change wise men’s manners.
11. Wine and youth increases love.
12. Wine does not intoxicate men, men intoxicate themselves.
13. Wine is the glass of the mind.
14. Wine makes all sorts of creatures at table.
15. Wine wears no breeches.
 AMBITION
1. Ambition makes people diligent.
2. He who aims at the moon may hit the top of a tree; he who aims at
the top of a tree is unlikely to get off the ground.
3. He that stays in the valley, shall never get over the hill.
4. Nothing seek, nothing find.
5. Look to a gown of gold, and you will at least get a sleeve of it.
6. Hitch your wagon to a star.
7. Ambition loses many a man.
8. The best is the enemy of the good.
9. Better sit still than rise and fall.
10. Hasty climbers have sudden falls.
11. High places have their precipices.
12. The higher the mountain the greater the descent.
13. Better be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion.
14. Better ride on an ass that carries me than a horse that throws me.
15. He who rides the tiger is afraid to dismount.
16. He who follows two hares catches neither.
17. It is not enough to aim, you must hit. (Italian)

ANGER
1. Anger punishes itself.
2. Wrath killed the foolish man.
3. Anger has no eyes.
4. When wrath speaks, wisdom veils her face.
5. Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance.
6. As fire is kindled by bellows, so is anger by words.
7. Patience provoked turns to fury.
8. When angry, count a hundred.
9. A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up
anger.

ANIMALS
1. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
2. Every dog has its day.
3. Men show their superiority, inside, animals, outside. (Russian)
4. Rats know the way of rats.
 ANTICIPATION
1. Fear of death is worse than death itself.
2. Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.
3. Don’t sell the skin till you have caught the bear.
4. Never spend your money before you have it.
5. Don’t bargain for fish which are still in the water.
6. Do not triumph before the victory.
7. He laughs best who laughs last.
8. Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disap­
pointed.
9. Nothing is certain but the unforeseen.
10. Anticipation is the enemy of pleasure.

APPEARANCE
1. All that glitters is not gold.
2. It is not the beard that makes the philosopher.
3. If the beard were all, the goat might preach.
4. The face is no index to the heart.
5. Bees that have honey in their mouths have stings in their tails.
6. Cats hide their claws.
7. What is sweet in the mouth is oft bitter in the stomach.
8. All clouds bring not rain.
9. Still waters run deep.
10. Straight stick is crooked in the water.
11. A black plum is as sweet as a white.
12. All are not thieves that dogs bark at.
13. An ape’s an ape, a varlet’s a varlet, though they be clad in silk or
scarlet.
14. Appearances are often deceptive.

APPETITE
1. One always has a good appetite at another’s feast.

ARGUMENT
1. In argument similes are like songs in love, they describe much, but
prove nothing.
2. Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.
3. Many can argue; not many converse.
4. Wise men argue causes and fools decide them.
5. Arguments should be for argument’s sake.

ARROGANT
1. An arrogant man loses his society soon.

ART
1. Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life.
2. Art is not a thing; it is a way.
3. He who has an art, has everywhere a part.
4. Art hath an enemy called ignorance.
5. Art for art’s sake and with no purpose; any purpose perverts art.
6. Art conceals art.
7. Art is long, life is transitory.
8. Painters and poets have live to lie.

ASKING
1. Better to ask the way than go astray.
2. Ask and it shall be given you.
3. Like question, like answer.
4. Never answer a question until it is asked.
5. It is not every question that deserves an answer.
6. He that asks faintly begs a denial.
7. Don’t say ‘No’ till you are asked.
8. No, thank you, has lost many a good butter-cake.

ASPIRATION
1. No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
2. The thing we long for, that we are.
3. There is nothing noble in being superior to some other men; the
true nobility is in being superior to your previous self. (Hindu)
4. Aspiring people are inspring people.
 ASS
1. An ass is an ass, though laden with gold.
2. The ass that brays most eats less.
3. An ass loaded with gold climbs the top of the castle.

ASSOCIATE
1. When a dove begins to associate with crows its feathers remain
white but its heart grows black. (German)
2. If you always live with those who are lame, you will yourself learn
to limp. (Latin)
3. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.
4. If you always live with those who are lame, you will yourself learn
to limp. (Latin)
5. When a dove begins to associate with crows its feathers remain
white but its heart grows black. (German)

AUTHORITY
1. It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
2. It is ill putting a sword in a madman’s hand.
3. Power corrupts.
4. If you wish to know a man, give him authority.
5. One must be a servant before one can be a master.
6. He that is master of himself, will soon be master of others.

BABY
1. Don’t the baby out with the bathwater.

BACHELOR
1. A bachelor lives like a king and dies like a beggar.

BADNESS
1. Covetousness is the root of all evil.
2. Mischief comes without calling for.
3. Weeds want no sowing.
4. He that does ill, hates the light.
5. One might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
6. They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.
7. He that lives wickedly can hardly die honestly.
8. Never open the door to a little vice, lest a great one enter with it.
9. It is a good world, but they are ill that are on it.
10. The love of the wicked is more dangerous than their hatred.
12. Show a good man his error, and he turns it to a virtue; but an ill, it
doubles his fault.
13. A bad name is worse than bad man.

BARGAIN
1. It takes two to make a bargain. (English)
2. It’s a bad bargain where nobody gains.

BEAUTY
1. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
2. Beauty may have fair leaves, yet bitter fruit.
3. The peacock has fair feathers, but foul feet.
4. Beauty and honesty seldom agree.
5. Beauty draws more than oxen.
6. Small is beautiful.
7. Beauty is power; a smile is its sword.
8. Beauty without virtue is a curse.
9. Beauty without modesty is infamous.
10. The neighbour’s wife is always beautiful.
11. Anyone who sees beauty and does not look at it soon be poor.
(Yoruba proverb)
12. Beauty doest not make the pot boil. (Irish)
13. Beauty is power. (Arab)
14. Beauty proboketh thieves sooner than good.
15. The first in beauty must be the first in power.

BED
1. Of all the foes that man should dread, the first and worst is bed.
2. As you made your bed, you must lie in it.
3. Go to bed with the lamb, and rise with the lark.
4. Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and
wise.
5. As you make your bed you must lie in it. (English)

BEGGAR
1. Beggars cannot be choosers.
2. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride them.
3. A beggar can never be bankrupt.

BEGINNING
1. Well begun is half done.
2. He that climbs the ladder must begin at the first rung.
3. A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step. (Chinese)
4. From small beginnings come great things.
5. Great oaks from little acorns grow.
6. The first step is the hardest.
7. A journey of thousand miles must begin with a single step. (Chi­
nese)
8. All is well that ends well. (English)
9. Between the beginning and the end is always the middle. (Mexican)

BELIEF
1. Man without belief will perish.
2. Seeing is believing.
3. Men willingly believe what they wish.
4. He can who believes he can.
5. Faith will move mountains.
6. Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.
7. Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. (Dan­
ish)
8. Each man’s belief is right in his own eyes.

BEST
1. The best of friends must part.
2. The best of things in life are free.
3. Those that make the best of their time, have none to spare.
4. No doubt everything is for the best.

BIRD
1. A Bird in hand is worth two in the bush.
2. Birds of a feather flock together.

BLESSINGS
1. Blessings never come in pairs; misfortunes never come alone.
(Chinese)
2. Blessings are not valued till they are gone.

BLOOD
1. Blood is thicker than water.
2. You can’t get blood out of stone.
3. Blue blood has its uses and abuses.

BONE
1. The nearer the bone, the sweeter the flesh.

BOOK
1. You can’t tell a book by its cover.
2. Books and friends should be few but good.
3. A good book is the purest essence of a human soul.
4. Some books leave us free and some books make us free.
5. A good book is best of friends, the same today and forever.
6. A book is like a garden carried in a pocket.

BORROWING
1. Better buy than borrow.
2. Better go to bed supperless than to rise in debt.
3. Borrowed garments never fit well.
4. He that borrows binds himself with his neighbour’s rope.
5. Creditors have better memories than debtors.
6. He that borrows must pay again with shame or loss.
7. Borrowers should not be choosers.
8. Borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

BOY
1. One boy is more trouble than a dozen girls.
2. Boys will be boys. (English)

BRAVE
1. None but the brave deserve the fair.
2. The brave will save.

BREAD
1. Better half of loaf than no bread.
2. Bread is the staff of life.

BUILDING
1. Building and borrowing, a sack full of sorrowing.
2. Building and marrying of children are great wasters.
3. Fools build houses, and wise men live in them.
4. Who borrows to build, builds to sell.

BUSINESS
1. Everybody’s business is nobody’s business.
2. Business is other people’s money.
3. Cheat or be cheated is something called business.
4. Live together like brothers and do business like strangers. (Arabic)

BULL
1. Like a bull in a China shop.
2. To take the bull by the horn.
3. A red rag to the bull.
 BUY
1. You cannot buy what is not for sale. (Chinese)

CALM
1. After a storm there is a calm.
2. In a calm sea, every man is a pilot.

CANDLE
1. A candle does not illuminate its own base.

CARELESSNESS
1. The wife of a careless man is almost a widow. (Hungarian)

CAT
1. A cat has nine lives.
2. A cat may look at a king.
3. When the cat’s away, the mice will play.
4. A cat in gloves catches no mice.

CAUTION
1. Better be safe than sorry.
2. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
3. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.
4. Look before you leap.
5. When you go to buy use your eyes, not your ears. (Czech)
6. Drink nothing without seeing it, sign nothing without reading it.
(Spanish)
7. Prevention is better than cure.
8. Do not all you can, spend not all you have, believe not all you
hear, and tell not all you know. (Japanese)

CHANGE
1. A change is as good as a rest.
2. Variety is the spice of life.
3. Changes of pasture make fat calves.
4. A tree often transplanted, bears not much fruit.
5. Don’t change horses in midstream.
6. A rolling stone gathers no moss.
7. Times change and we with them.
8. One cannot put back the clock.
9. There is nothing permanent except change.
10. You can’t put new wine into old bottles.
11. Each change brings a little good, each change brings a little bad.
(Mexican)
12. Never swap horses crossing a stream. (American)

CHARACTER
1. Eagles do not breed doves.
2. How can the foal amble if the horse and the mare trot?
3. Of a thorn springs not a fig.
5. A man’s studies pass into his character.
6. Travellers change climates, not conditions.
7. Cut off a dog’s tail and he will be a dog still.
8. The leopard cannot change his spots.
9. You cannot make a crab walk straight.
10. Fire cannot be hidden in fax.
11. When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something
is lost; when character is lost, everything is lost. (German)
12. The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the
conduct of one hour. (Japanese)
13. A man shows his character by what he laughs at. (German)
14. Character is destiny.
15. Distance tests a horse’s strength, time reveals a person’s character.
(Chinese)
16. Grapes don’t grow on thistles.
17. It is not what you call us, but what we answer that matters. (Djuka
Proverb)
18. The crown and glory of life is character.

CHARITY
1. Charity begins at home.
2. Help lane dogs over stiles.
 21
CHILDREN
1. Children are poor men’s riches.
2. A son is a son till he gets him a wife, but a daughter’s a daughter all
the days of her life.
3. Children suck the mother when they are young, and the father
when they are old.
4. A little child weighs on your knee, a big one on your heart.
5. Children and chicken must be always picking.
6. Children and fools cannot lie.
7. What children hear at home, soon flies abroad.
8. Soft wax will take any impression.
9. Children should be seen and not heard.
10. Let not a child sleep upon bones.
11. The child is father of the man.
12. The fine pullet shows its excellence from the egg.
13. Wanton kittens make sober cats.
14. Soon ripe, soon rotten.
15. Spare the rod and spoil the child.

CHOOSING
1. Choose neither woman nor linen by candle-light.
2. The customer is always right.
3. The blind man’s peck should be well measured.
4. He will never have a good thing cheap that is afraid to ask the price.

CITIZENSHIP
1. If each person sweeps in front of his or her own door, the whole
street is clean. (Yiddish Proverb)

CLEVERNESS
1. A clever man turns great troubles into little ones and little ones
into none at all. (Chinese)

CLIMB
1. He who never climbed never fell.
2. To climb steep hills require slow pace at first.
 CLOTHES
1. Clothes do not make a man.
2. Dress up a stick it does not appear to be a stick.
3. Good clothes open all doors.
4. The apparel oft proclaims the man.
5. The clothes make the man. (Latin)

COMMON SENSE
1. Common sense is instinct; enough of it is genious.

COMMUNITY
1. If farmers do not work their fields, the people in the town will die
of hunger. (Guinean)

COMPANY/COMPANIONSHIP
1. A crowd is not company.
2. Keep good men company, and you shall be of the number.
3. Good company upon the road is shortest cut.
4. Better be alone than in bad company.
5. A man is known by the company he keeps.
6. Tell me with whom thou goest, and I’ll tell thee what thou doest.
7. Two’s a company, three’s a crowd. (English)
8. One cup of coffee has a memory of respect for forty years. (Turk­
ish)

COMPLAINTS
1. Constant complaints never get pity.

COMPROMISE
1. It takes two to tango.
2. Better bend than break. (Scottish)

CONFESSION
1. Open confession is good for the soul. (Scottish)
 CONFLICT
1. Attack is the best form of defence.
2. Light fire with fire.
3. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

CONFUSION
1. Too many cooks spoil the broth.
2. When all men speak, no man hears.

CONSCIENCE
1. A guilty conscience needs no accuser.
2. Conscience is a thousand witnesses.
3. Who has skirts of straw, needs fear the fire.
4. Conscience does make cowards of us all.
5. Preserve a clear conscience, and sleep without fear in the desert.
6. Innocent actions carry their warrant with them.
7. There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience. (French)

CONTEMPT
1. Familiarity breeds contempt.
2. Many can bear adversity, but few contempt.
3. Never was a scornful person well received.
4. Better to have a dog fawn on you than bite you.

CONTENTMENT
1. He who is content in his poverty, is wonderfully rich.
2. There was never enough where nothing was left.
3. He has enough who is contented with little.
4. Humble hearts have humble desires.
5. The greatest wealth is contentment with a little.
6. A wise man cares not for what he cannot have.
7. Discontent is the first step in progress.
8. Though stone were changed to gold, the heart of man would not
be satisfied.
9. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
10. The goat must browse where she is tied.
11. A man must plough with such oxen as he has.
12. Enjoy the little you have, while the fool is hunting for more.

CONVERSATION
1. Conversation reveals one what he is.
2. Speech is silver, silence is gold.
3. Conversation teaches more than meditation.
4. Education begins a gentleman, conversation completes him.
5. Great talkers are like leaky pitchers, all runs out of them.
6. He that converse not know nothing.
7. If you speak insults you shall also hear them. (Latin)
8. One good word can warm three winter months. (Chinese)

CORRUPTION
1. The unrighteous penny corrupts the righteous pound.
2. The rotten apple injures its neighbours.
3. One scabbed sheep will mar a whole flock.
4. Near vermillion one gets stained pink.
5. He who squeezes in between the onion and the peel, picks up its
stink.
6. Who keeps company with the wolf will learn to howl.
7. If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.
8. He who lives with cats will get a taste for mice.
9. A bride will enter without knocking.
10. Gold goes in at any gate except heaven’s.

COUNTRY
1. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
2. Happy is the country which has no history.

COURAGE
1. Courage and resolution are the spirit and soul of virtue.
2. Valour is the nobleness of the mind.
3. Fear can keep a man out of danger, but courage can support him
in it.
4. Great things are done more through courage than through wis­
dom.
5. A bold heart is half the battle.
6. Faint heart never won fair lady.
7. Despair gives courage to a coward.
8. A valiant man’s look is more than a coward’s sword.
9. A man of courage never wants weapons.
10. A brave man’s wounds are seldom on his back.
11. To the real hero life is a mere straw.
12. Calamity is the touchstone of a brave mind.
13. Every dog is valiant at his own door.
14. Discretion is the better part of valour.
15. Courage consists not so much in avoiding danger as in conquer­
ing it.
16. It is better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep.
(Italian)

COURTESY
1. Courtesy on one side only lasts not long.

COWARDICE
1. Cowards die often.
2. Cowards die many times before their deaths.
3. Make a coward fight and he will kill the devil.
4. The mother of the coward does not worry about him.
5. One pair of heels is often worth two pairs of hands.
6. Put a coward to his mettle, and he’ll fight the devil.
8. Necessity and opportunity may make a coward valiant.

CREDIT
1. Credit is dead, bad pay killed it.

CREDIBILITY/CREDULITY
1. Better be too credulous than too sceptical. (Chinese)
 CRIME
1. Poverty is the mother of crime.
2. He that steals honey should beware of the sting.
3. Ill-gotten goods never prosper.
4. He that will steal an egg, will steal an ox.
5. An old poacher makes the best gamekeeper.
6. If there were no receivers, there would be no thieves.
7. A thief knows a thief as a wolf knows a wolf.
8. It is not the thief who is hanged, but the one who was caught steal­
ing. (Czech)
9. Whoever profits by the crime is guilty of it. (French)

CRITICISM
1. Hard words break no bones.
2. Judge not, that ye be not judged.
3. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
4. The camel never sees its own hump, but that of its brother is al­
ways before its eyes.
5. You can see a mote in another’s eye but cannot see a beam in your
own.
6. Physician, heal thyself.
7. Everyone’s faults are not written in their foreheads.
8. If every man would sweep before his own door, the city would
soon be clean.
9. Even the lion has to defend himself against flies. (German)
10. The uncriticized life is not worth living.

CROSS
1. No cross, no crown.
2. The cross that our own hands fashion is the heaviest cross of all.

CRUELTY
1. Cruelty is the strength of the wicked.
2. Sometimes clemency is cruelty, and cruelty clemency.
3. Malice hurts itself most.
4. He threatens many that hurts any.
5. Tramp on a snail, and she’ll shoot out her horns.
6. Cold rice and cold tea are bearable, but cold looks and cold words
are not. (Japanese)

CUNNING
1. When the fox preaches, then beware of your geese.
2. An old fox is not easily snared.
3. If you deal with a fox, think of his tricks.
4. A sleeping fox counts hens in his dreams. (Russian)

CURIOSITY
1. Ask no questions and hear no lies.
2. Curiosity killed the cat. (American)
3. Enquire not what boils into another’s pot.
4. He who gazes upon the sun, shall at last be blind.
5. He who peeps through a whole, may see what will wex him.

CUSTOM
1. Do in Rome as the Romans do.
2. Other times, other customs.
3. Ancient custom has the force of law.
4. Custom is the Universal Sovereign.
5. A bad custom is like a good cake, better broken than kept.
6. Custom has the force of law.
7. Custom without reason is but ancient error.
8. Other times, other customs. (Italian)
9. The command of custom is great.
10. The custom rules the law.
11. With customs we live well, but laws undo us.

CUT
1. Cut your coat according to your cloth.
2. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
 DANGER
1. No safe wading in an unknown water.
2. There is a scorpion under every stone.
3. Danger makes men devout.
4. The fly that plays too long in the candle, singes its wing at last.
5. The more danger, the more honour.
6. He that would sail without danger, must never come on the main
sea.
7. Don’t go near the water until you learn how to swim.
8. If you play with fire you get burnt.
9. Coming events cast their shadows before.
10. Danger foreseen is half avoided.
11. The pitcher that goes too often to the well is broken at last. (En­
glish)

DAYDREAM
1. He who looks only at heaven may easily break his nose on earth.
(Czech)

DEATH
1. As soon as man is born he begins to die.
2. A dead bee makes no honey.
3. There is hope from the mouth of the sea, but none from the mouth
of the grave.
4. The evening crowns the day.
5. Death rather frees us from ills, then robs us of our goods.
6. Dying men speak true.
7. When death is on the tongue, repentance is not difficult.
8. Graves are of all sizes.
9. Death devours lambs as well as sheep.
10. Six feet of earth make all men equal.
11. Dead men have no friends.
12. The dead are always wrong.
13. A man has learned much who has learned how to die. (German)
14. Death rides a fast camel. (Arab)
15. Nothing is certain, but death and taxes.
16. The old man has his death before his eyes, the young man behind
his back.
17. Death does not blow a trumpet.
18. Death spares neither pope nor beggar.
19. Death is deaf and hears no denial.
20. Death like birth, is a secret of nature.
21. Death sends his challenge in a gray hair.
22. Old men go to death, death comes to young men.

DEBT
1. A man in debt is caught in a net.
2. A pound of care will not pay an ounce of debt.
3. Out of debt, out of danger.

DECEIT
1. Trust is the mother of deceit.
2. To deceive a deceiver is no deceit.
3. Who thinks to deceive God has already deceived himself.
4. He that will cheat at play, will cheat you anyway.
5. Deceivers have full mouths and empty hands.
6. To deceive oneself is very easy.
7. Cheat me in the price but not in the goods.

DEEDS
1. Our own actions are our security, not others’ judgements.
2. By his deeds we know a man.
3. Deeds are fruits, words are but leaves.
4. A man of words and not of deeds, is like a garden full of weeds.
5. Deeds will show themselves, and words will pass away.
6. Good words without deeds are rushes and reeds.
7. Every deed is to be judged by the doer’s intention.
8. One good deed atones for thousand bad ones.
9. Better suffer ill than do ill.
10. Evil deeds are like perfume, difficult to hide.
11. Deeds don’t used to be written on ice.
12. The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with
their bones.

DEFAMATION
1. Throw dirt enough, and some will stick.
2. If the ball does not stick to the wall, it will at least leave a mark.
3. Slander cannot make a good man bad; when the water recedes the
stone is still there.
4. Give a dog a bad name and hang him.
5. The slanderer kills a thousand times, the assassin but once.

DELAY
1. While the grass grows, the horse starves.
2. Desires are nourished by delays.
3. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.
4. Long tarrying takes all the thanks away.
5. One hour today is worth two tomorrow.
6. Tomorrow never comes.

DESERVING
1. A good dog deserves a good bone.
2. He that blows best, bears away the horn.
3. He that serves well, need not ask his wages.
4. He that sows thistles shall reap prickles.
5. Like fault, like punishment.

DESIRE
1. He who desires nothing will be free.

DESPAIR
1. Despair doubles our strength.
2. Despair gives courage to a coward.
 DESTINY
1. Destiny is blind.
2. Man is the architect of his destiny.

DETERMINATION
1. He who hesitates is lost.
2. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

DEVIL
1. The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
2. The devil sometimes speaks the truth.
3. The devil finds work for idle hands to do.
4. The devil’s boots don’t creak. (Scottish)

DIGNITY
1. Dignity is one thing that cannot be preserved in alcohol.

DIFFERENCES
1. All feet tread not in one shoe.
2. Every man after his fashion.
3. There is no accounting for tastes.
4. All meat pleases not all mouths.
5. If minds were alike goods would age in the shops.
6. There are more ways to kill a cat than choking it with cream.
7. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

DISCIPLINE
1. Corn is cleansed with wind, and the soul with chastenings.
2. It is the bridle and spur that makes a good horse.
3. The plough goes not well if the ploughman hold it not.
4. Rule youth well, and age will rule itself.
5. Give me a child for the first seven years and you may do what you
like with him afterwards.
6. Spare the rod and spoil the child.
7. He that is master of himself, will soon be master of others.
8. He is not fit to command others, that cannot command himself.

DISCRETION
1. Valour would fight, but discretion would run away.
2. The man who runs away may fight again.

DISEASE
1. Desperate diseases must have desperate remedies. (Latin)
2. Disease and death recognize no face.

DISTANCE
1. Distant drums sound well.

DISTRUST
1. Distrust that man who tells you to distrust.

DOCTOR
1. A good surgeon must have an eagle’s eye, a lion’s heart and a lady’s
hand.
2. A priest sees people at their best, a lawyer at their worst, but a
doctor sees them as they really are.
3. Death defies the doctor.
4. Few lawyers die well, few physicians live well.
5. Hide nothing from thy minister, physician and lawyer.
6. If you have a physician for your friend, tip your hat and send him
to your enemy.
7. One doctor makes work for another.
8. Physicians kill more than they cure.
9. The doctor is often more to be feared than the disease.
 DOOR
1. When one door shuts, another opens.

DOUBT
1. Our doubts are tractors.
2. Who knows most, doubts not.
3. Doubt destroys deed.
4. A doubtful beginner is always a failure.

DREAM
1. After a dream of a wedding comes a corpse.
2. Dream of a funeral and you hear of a marriage.
3. Golden dreams make men awake hungry.
4. In dreams and in love nothing is impossible.
5. Morning dreams come true.
6. To believe in one’s dreams is to spend all one’s life asleep.
7. When troubles are few, dreams are few.

DRINKING
1. When the wine is in, the wit is out.
2. Ale will make a cat speak.
3. Drunkards and fools cannot lie.
4. What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals.
5. Drunkenness does not produce faults it discovers them.
6. Let but the drunkard alone, and he will fall off himself.
7. Drunken folks seldom take harm.
8. There are more old drunkards than old doctors.
9. The first glass for thirst, the second for nourishment, the third for
pleasure, and the fourth for madness.
10. He goes not out of his way that goes to a good inn.
11. Drinking water neither makes a man sick, nor debt, nor his wife a
widow.
12. Drink less, and go home by delight.
13. Eat at pleasure, drink by measure.
14. He who is master of his thirst is master of his health.
15. A drunken man is always dry.
16. He that goes to bed thirsty, rises healthy.

DROP
1. Little drops of water make the mighty ocean.
2. The last drop makes the pot overflow.

EAR
1. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice.
2. Kings have many ears and many eyes.
3. Hungry bellies have no ears.

EARLY
1. Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and
wise.
2. The early bird catches the worm.

EATING
1. Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus grows cold.
2. All things require skill but an appetite.
3. Better fill a man’s belly than his eye.
4. Eating and drinking take away one’s stomach.
5. Salt seasons all things.
6. Of soup and love, the first is the best.
7. After dinner sit a while, after supper walk a mile.
8. When the belly is full, the bones would be at rest.
9. He that eats least eats most.
10. Eat to live and not live to eat.
11. Often and little eating makes a man fat.
12. Fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.
13. Speak not of a dead man at the table.
14. If you want your dinner, don’t offend the cook.
15. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and
hatred therewith.
16. The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat.
17. If you want to eat eggs, first take care of the hen. (West African)

EDUCATION
1. Education polishes good natures, and correcteth bad ones.
2. Education is the transmission of civlization.
3. Nothing so much worth as a mind well educated.

EFFICIENCY
1. The best carpenters make the fewest chips. (German)

EFFORT
1. Nothing will come of nothing.
2. Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle. (Italian)

END
1. Think of the end before you begin.
2. All’s well that ends well.
3. The end justifies the means.
4. The end is where we start from.
5. The opera ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.

ENDURANCE
1. What can’t be cured, must be endured.
2. Even a worm will turn.
3. The orange that is too hard squeezed yields a bitter juice.
4. The pitcher goes so often to the well that it is broken at last.
5. The last straw breaks the camel’s back.
6. He that makes himself a sheep, shall be eaten by the wolf.
7. Blessed is the man that endureth temptations.

ENEMY
1. One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
2. Nothing worse than a familiar enemy.
3. Better a thousand enemies outside the house than one inside.
(Arab)
4. Speak well of your friend, of your enemy say nothing.
5. Though thy enemy seem a mouse, yet watch him like a lion.
6. Beware of wolf in sheep’s clothing.
7. One enemy is too many; and a hundred friends too few. (German)
8. The enemies of my enemies are my friends.

ENVY
1. Envy eats nothing but its own heart.
2. Envy and covetousness are never satisfied.
3. The envious man shall never want woe.
5. Envy and idleness married together begot curiosity.
6. He who envies admits his inferiority.
7. Better be envied than pitied.
8. Compete. Don’t envy. (Arab)
9. The grass is always greener on the otherside of the fence. (Ameri­
can)

EQUALITY
1. At a round table, there’s no dispute of place.
2. Homo is a common name to all men.
3. The rain falls on every roof.
4. Every ass thinks himself worthy to stand with the king’s horses.
5. The lower millstone grinds as well as the upper.
6. Finders keepers, losers weepers. (American)

EXAMPLE
1. Example is better than precept.
2. Precepts may lead but examples draw.
3. We live by laws, not by examples.
4. Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.
5. One sheep follows another.
6. If one sheep leap’s o’er the dyke, all the rest will follow.
 EXCEPTIONS
1. There is an exception in every rule. (Russian)

EXCESS
1. Excess of ceremony shows want of breeding. (Latin)
2. Excess of everything is bad.
3. Extreme cleverness is as bad as folly; extreme fluency is as bad as
stammering.

EXCUSE
1. If you offend, ask for pardon; if offended, forgive.
2. When the ape cannot reach the bannanas he says they are sour.
(Banbara)

EXERCISE
1. Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for
illness.

EXPERIENCE
1. Experience is the mother of wisdom.
2. Experience without learning is better than learning without expe­
rience.
3. Knowledge without practice makes but half an artist.
4. By writing you learn to write.
5. Experience keeps a dear school, but fools learn in no other.
6. Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes.
7. He that has been bitten by a serpent, is afraid of a rope.
8. Wise men learn by other men’s harms, fools by their own.
9. A young physician fattens the churchyard.
10. Experience is the fool’s best teacher, the wise do not need it. (Welsh)
11. Experience is a hard school, but a fool will learn in no other. (Irish)
12. Experience is the best teacher.
13. I hear and I forget. I see and I remember.
14. If everything could be done twice, everything would be done bet­
ter. (Costa Rican)
15. The burnt child dreads the fire. (English)

EYES
1. The heart’s letter is read in the eyes.
2. Seeing is believing.
3. One eyewitness is better than two hear-so’s.
4. The eyes have one language everywhere.
5. The eye is bigger than the belly.
6. Everything appears yellow to the jaundiced eye.
7. Eye for an eye.

FACE
1. Face is the mirror of heart.

FACT
1. Facts are stronger than fiction.

FAIR
1. Fair gainings make fair spendings.

FAIR PLAY

1. All is fair in love and war. (English)

2. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. (English)

FAME
1. Reputation is often got without merit, and lost without crime.
2. Fame is a thin shadow of eternity.
3. Good fame is better than good face.
4. He that has lost his credit, is dead to the world.
5. Credit lost is like a Venice-glass broken.
6. A wounded reputation is seldom cured.
7. A good name is sooner lost than won.
8. Fame is the thrust of youth.
 FAMILIARITY
1. Familiarity breeds contempt.
2. Respect is greater from a distance.
3. Those near the temple deride the gods.
4. Prophet is not without honour, save in his own country.
5. Goods that are much on show lose their colour.

FAMILY
1. A brother is like one’s shoulder. (Somalian)
2. Eat and drink below your means, clothes yourself according to
your means, and honour your wife and children beyond your
means. (Jewish)
3. In the baby lies the future of the world....His father must take him
to the highest hill to see what his world is like. (Mayan)
4. It takes a village to raise a child. (Benin)

FASHION
1. Better be out of the world than out of fashion.
2. Fools may invent fashion that wise men will wear.
3. The present fashion is always handsome.
4. What has been the fusion will come into fashion again.

FATE
1. Fate leads the willing but drives the stubborn.
2. He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned.
3. Keep trying and see what fate brings. (Vietnamese)

FEAR
1. When we have gold, we are in fear; when we have none, we are in
danger.
2. Fear is a great inventor.
3. Better a fearful end than fear without end.
4. Fear is one part of prudence.
5. Fear is stronger than love.
6. All the weapons of war will not arm fear.
7. He that fears leaves, let him not go into the wood.

FINE ARTS
1. Pictures are the books of the unlearned.
2. A good painter can draw a devil as well as an angel.

FLATTERY
1. Flattery sits in the parlour, when plain-dealing is kicked out of
doors.
2. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
3. One complimentry letter asks another.
4. Beware of one who flatters unduly; he will he also censure un­
justly.
5. No foe to a flatterer.
6. When the flatterer pipes, then the devil dances.
7. Flattery brings friends, truth and enemies.

FOOD
1. All griefs with bread are less.
2. An army marches on its stomach.
3. Better pay the cook than the doctor.
4. Bread is better than blossoms.
5. Bread is the staff of life.
6. Cheese digests everything but itself.
7. Eat at pleasure, drink by measure. (French)
8. Feed by measure and defy thy physician.
9. Many dishes make many diseases.
10. Much meat, much malady.
11. One man’s meat is another’s poison. (English)
12. Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
13. The best food is that which fills the belly.
14. The way to an Englishman’s heart is through his stomach.
15. To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.
16. When meat is in, anger is out.
 FOOLISHNESS
1. The folly of one man is the fortune of another.
2. God sends fortune to fools.
3. Better be a fool than a knave.
4. Fools should not have chopping sticks.
5. When the moon’s in the full, then wit’s in the wane.
6. Every man, a little beyond himself is a fool.
7. Every man is a fool sometimes, and none at all times.
8. If all fools wore feathers we should seem a flock of geese.
9. What the fool does in the end, the wise man does at the beginning.
10. A wise man changes his mind, a fool never.
11. Fat paunches have lean pates.
12. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
13. From a foolish judge, a quick sentence.
14. Fools rejoice at promises.
15. A fool’s tongue is long enough to cut his own throat.
16. Wise men have their mouth in their heart, fools their heart in their
mouth.
17. If the fool knew how to be silent he could sit among the wise.
18. Folly and learning often dwell together.
19. Foolish men will always be servants to the wise. (Japanese)

FORESIGHT
1. He is wise who looks ahead.
2. Forethought is easy, repentance hard.
3. Thatch your roof before the rain begins.
4. Although it rain, throw not away your watering-pot.
5. Although the sun shine, leave not your cloak at home.
6. Before you marry, be sure of a house where in to tarry.

FORGIVENESS
1. Pardons and pleasantness are great revenges of slanders.
2. Pardon is the choicest flower of victory.
3. To err is human; to forgive, divine.
4. Pardon one offence and you encourage many.
5. Mercy to the criminal may be cruelty to the people.
6. God gives His wrath by weight and without weight His mercy.

FORTUNE
1. All good things come those who wait.
2. April showers bring may flowers.
3. Even a fool has his luck.
4. Every one wants to share in a man’s success, but no one wants to
share in his misfortunes. (Indian)
5. He who dose not try has no luck. (Mexican)
6. What is bad luck for one man is good luck for another. (Ashanti
proverb)
FREEDOM
1. Lean liberty is better than fat slavery.

FRIENDS
1. Life without a friend, is death without a witness.
2. Better an open enemy than a false friend.
3. It is better to be stung by a nettle than pricked by a rose.
4. When good cheer is lacking, our friends will be packing.
5. Poverty parts fellowship.
6. In time of prosperity, friends will be plenty; in time of adversity,
not one amongst twenty.
7. He that ceases to be a friend, never was a good one.
8. Love your friend, but look to yourself.
9. A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.
10. The rich man knows not who is his friend.
11. When two friends have a common purse, one sings and the other
weeps.
12. A friend in need is a friend indeed.
13. A friend is never know till a man have need.
14. Friends are made in wine and proved in tears.
15. Perfect friendship cannot be without equality.
16. They are rich who have true friends.
17. A friend to everybody is a friend to nobody.
18. Select your friend with a silk- gloved hand and hold him with an
iron gauntlet.
19. Sudden friendship, sure repentance.
20. Trust not a new friend nor an old enemy.
21. Friendship cannot stand always on one side.
22. A hedge between keeps friendship green.
23. Treat a friend as if he might become a foe.
24. One good friend is better than cash in purse. (German)
25. One who looks for a friend without faults will have none. (Jewish)
26. A good friend will fit you a ring to a finger. (Venezuelan)
27. Friends prove their worth when you are in trouble.
28. He that is wise can make a friend of a foe. (Scottish)
29. To lose a friend, loan him money. (Greek)
30. What will be, will be. (Che sera, sera) (Italian)

GAIN
1. Great gain makes work easy.
2. Great pain and little gain will make a man soon weary.
3. Pain is forgotten where gain follows.
4. A blow that is profitable does not hurt the neck.
5. No pains, no gains.
6. One man’s loss is another man’s gain.

GAMBLING
1. Cards are the devil’s books.
2. The devil is in the dice.
3. The best throw of the dice, is to throw them away.

GENIUS
1. There was never a great genius without a tincture of madness.
2. Genius is patience.
3. Genius is fostered by industry.
4. Rules and models destroy genius and art.
5. The lamp of genius burns more rapidly than the lamp of life.
6. Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.
 GENTILITY
1. Gentility is but ancient riches.
2. Gentility without ability is worse than plain beggary.
3. It is not the gay coat that make the gentleman.
4. It takes three generations to make a gentleman.
5. Manners and money make a gentleman.
6. The king can make a knight, but not a gentleman.

GIFT
1. All we can hold in our cold dead hands is what we have given away.
(Sanskrit)
2. A gift much expected is paid, not given.
3. Small gifts make friends, great ones make enemies.
4. Who receives a gift, sells his liberty.

GIVING
1. It is more blessed to give than to receive.
2. He who gives discreetly gains directly.
3. Giving much to the poor doth enrich a man’s store.
4. Alms never make poor.
5. He gives twice who gives quickly.
6. To refuse and to give tardily is all the same.
7. Benefits make a man a slave.
8. Give a loaf and beg a slice.
9. If you have little, give of your heart. (Arab)

GLUTTONY
1. A fat belly does not breed a subtle mind.
2. A full belly neither fights nor flies well.
3. If it were not for the belly, the back might wear gold.
4. Greedy eaters dig their graves with their teeth.
5. Gluttony kills more than the sword.

GOD
1. What God wills, no frost can kill.
2. The tree that God plants, no wind hurts it.
3. God is no respecter of persons.
4. God complains not, but does what is fitting.
5. To whom God gives the task, He gives the wit.
6. Heaven takes care of children, sailors, and drunken men.
7. God strikes with His finger, and not with all his arm.
8. God comes at last when we think He is farthest off.
9. God helps them that help themselves.
10. God is a good worker, but He loves to be helped.
11. God gives the grain, but we must make the furrow.
12. Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.
13. God gives His wrath by weight, and without weight His mercy.
14. God forgives sins, otherwise heaven would be empty.
15. Where God dwells, the devil also has his nest.
16. God sends corn and the devil mars the sack.
17. God made the country, and man made the town.
18. Divine light shows all.
19. God comes to see us without a bell. (Spanish)
20. God could not be everywhere therefore he made mothers. (Jew­
ish)
21. God helps the one who marries or builds a house. (Turkish)

GOOD
1. Good and quick seldom meet.
2. A good anvil does not fear the hammer.
3. A good archer is not known by his arrow but by his aim.
4. A good horse is never of a bad colour.
5. A good name keeps its lustre in the dark.
6. A good work is as soon said as a bad one.
7. Good jests bite like lambs and not like dogs. (Chinese)
8. Good medicine has often a bitter snack. (Spanish)
9. Good ware makes quick markets. (Latin)

GOODNESS
1. He cannot long be good that knows not why he is good.
2. It is hard to be good.
3. Goodness is better than beauty.
4. A good heart conquers ill fortune.
5. A good life makes a good death.
6. A handful of good life, is better than a bushel of learning.
7. None so good that it’s good to all.
8. That which is good for the back, is bad for the head.
9. Good for the liver may be bad for the spleen.
10. Good things are hard.
11. A good heart cannot lie.
12. Good men suffer much.
13. Good people walk on, whatever befall.

GOSSIP
1. Common flame is seldom to blame.
2. There’s no smoke without fire.
3. Where there are reeds, there is water.
4. Gossiping and lying go together.
5. The gossip of two women will destroy two houses.
6. An ill tongue may do much.
7. He who speaks much of others burns his tongue.
8. Whispered words are heard afar.
9. Fields have eyes, and woods have ears.
10. Walls have ears.
11. Who chatters to you, will chatter of you.
12. Don’t wash your dirty linen in public.

GRATITUDE
1. Gratitude preserves old friendships, and procures new.
2. To a grateful man, give money when he asks.
3. Do not forget little kindnesses and do not remember small faults.
4. When you drink from the stream, remember the spring.
5. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
6. Throw no gift again at the giver’s head.

GREATNESS
1. A great tree attracts the wind.
2. Great winds blow upon high hills.
3. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
4. He sits not sure that sits too high.
5. Oaks may fall when reeds stand the storm.
6. Little fishes slip through nets, but great fishes are taken.
7. A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child.
(Chinese)
8. Great men must die but death cannot kill them.
9. Great spenders are bad lenders. (Borrowings)
10. Great talkers are great liers. (Conversation)
11. From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. (French)
12. Great men rejoice in adversity, as soldiers triumph in war.
13. Great minds think alike. (American)
14. Great oaks from little acorns grow.

GREED
1. Kill not the goose that lays the golden egg.
2. Covetousness brings nothing home.
3. Greedy folks have long arms.
4. Where the carcass is, there shall be the eagles gathered together.
5. Beggars bags are bottomeless.
6. Give him an inch and he’ll take a yard.

GUILT
1. Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.
2. He that knows no guilt can know no fear.
3. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
4. Guilt is always cowardly.
5. Guilt is always zealous.
6. Guilt sinks the brave to cowards.

HABIT
1. Men do more things through habit than through reason.
2. Old habits die hard.
3. Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables. (Spanish)
2. Great winds blow upon high hills.
3. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
4. He sits not sure that sits too high.
5. Oaks may fall when reeds stand the storm.
6. Little fishes slip through nets, but great fishes are taken.
7. A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child.
(Chinese)
8. Great men must die but death cannot kill them.
9. Great spenders are bad lenders. (Borrowings)
10. Great talkers are great liers. (Conversation)
11. From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. (French)
12. Great men rejoice in adversity, as soldiers triumph in war.
13. Great minds think alike. (American)
14. Great oaks from little acorns grow.

GREED
1. Kill not the goose that lays the golden egg.
2. Covetousness brings nothing home.
3. Greedy folks have long arms.
4. Where the carcass is, there shall be the eagles gathered together.
5. Beggars bags are bottomeless.
6. Give him an inch and he’ll take a yard.

GUILT
1. Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.
2. He that knows no guilt can know no fear.
3. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
4. Guilt is always cowardly.
5. Guilt is always zealous.
6. Guilt sinks the brave to cowards.

HABIT
1. Men do more things through habit than through reason.
2. Old habits die hard.
3. Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables. (Spanish)
 HAIR
1. The beauty of the heavens is the stars; the beauty of the women is
their hair. (Italian)
2. Gray hair is a sign of age, not of wisdom. (Greek)
3. There was never a Saint with red hair. (Russian)

HALF
1. Half done is worse than not done.
2. The half is more than the whole.

HANGING
1. As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. (English)

HAPPINESS
1. It is comparison that makes men happy or miserable.
2. Happy is he that chastens himself.
3. Sadness and gladness succeed each other.
4. He who leaves his house in search of happiness pursues a shadow.
5. The joy of the heart makes the face fair.
6. A man of gladness seldom falls into madness.
7. With happiness comes intelligence to the heart.
8. When a man is happy he does not hear the clock strike.
9. Great happiness, great danger.
10. Sudden joy kills sooner than excessive grief.
11. Joy and sorrow are next door neighbours.
12. Happiness is not a horse, you cannot harness it.
13. Possessed of happiness, don’t exhaust it.
14. We should publish our joys, and conceal our griefs.
15. Mirth without measure is madness.
16. Of thy sorrow be not too sad, of thy joy be not too glad.
17. It is a poor heart that never rejoices.
18. Happiness is like s sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts,
while adversity is often as the rain of spring. (Chinese)
19. A kitten is a child’s happiness. (Cuban)
20. Are we happier than our forefather?
21. Happy heart is better than a full purse. (Italian)

HASTE/HASTNESS
1. It is the pace that kills.
2. Haste is the sister of repentance.
3. Marry in haste, and repent at leisure.
4. He begins to build too soon that has not money to finish it.
5. The hasty bitch brings forth blind whelps.
6. Haste makes waste.
7. That tongue does lie that speaks in haste.
8. Haste is the mother of imperfection.
9. Nothing should be done in haste but gripping a flea.
10. Haste not at the first harm.
11. Love not at the first look.
12. First think, and then speak.
13. Look before you leap.
14. Don’t stitch your seam before you’ve tacked it.
15. Don’t throw out your water until you get in fresh.
16. The nearest way is commonly the foulest.
17. He that goes softly goes safely.
18. Make haste slowly. (Latin)

HATRED
1. Hatred with friends is succour to foes.
2. He that cannot hate cannot love.
3. The greatest hate springs from the greatest love.
4. Hatred is blind, as well as love.
5. Old hate never wearies.

HEAD
1. An old head upon young shoulders.
2. Two heads are better than one. (English)

HEALTH
1. Health and gaiety foster beauty.
2. Health is great riches.
3. A good wife and health is man’s best wealth.
4. Health is not valued till sickness comes.
5. Dry feet, warm head, bring safe to bed.
6. The head and feet keep warm, the rest will take no harm.
7. Diseases are the price of ill pleasures.
8. Ill air slays sooner than the sword.
9. A disease known is half cured.
10. The best doctors are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merryman.
11. Kitchen physic is the best physic.
12. Feed a cold and starve a fever.
13. When a disease returns, no medicine can cure it.
14. Make not thy stomach an apothecary’s shop.
15. Cultivate health instead of treating disease.
16. He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.
(Arabian)
17. Health is wealth.
18. To a sick man even a honey tastes bitter. (Russian)

HEAT
1. If you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen.

HEAVEN AND HELL

1. Heaven and hell are within the heart.
2. Hell is always open.
3. Hell is wherever heaven is not.
4. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
5. The way to heaven is alike in every place.

HELP
1. One can’t help many, but many can help one.
2. He that is fallen cannot help him that is down.
3. Many hands make light work.
4. Too many cooks spoil the broth.
5. Save a thief from the gallows and he’ll cut your throat.
6. Slow help is no help.
7. Give me fire and I’ll give you a light.
8. One hand washeth the other, and both the face. (Latin)
9. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish
you feed him for a lifetime. (Chinese)
10. If you have much, give your wealth.
11. When one helps another, both gain in strength. (Ecuodorian)

HEREDITY
1. Adam ate the apple, and our teeth still ache. (Hungarian)
2. Clever father, clever daughter, clever mother, clever son. (Rus­
sian)

HISTORY
1. History, a distillation of Rumour.
2. There is properly no history, only biography.
3. History is the crystallisation of popular beliefs.
4. Anybody can make history, only a great man can write it.
5. History repeats itself.

HOME
1. Be it ever humble there is no place like home.
2. Bricks and mortar make a house, but the laughter of children makes
a home. (Irish)

HONESTY
1. Honesty is the best policy.
2. No honest man ever repented of his honesty.
3. Knavery may serve for a turn, but honesty is best in the long run.
4. Plain dealing is a jewel.
5. Better beg than steal.
6. Confess and be hanged.
7. Plain dealing is dead, and died without issue.
8. A thread will tie an honest man better than a rope will do a rogue.
9. Honest men marry soon, wise men not at all.
 HONOUR
1. Honours change manners.
2. Honour without profit is a ring on the finger.
3. Honour and profit lie not in one sack.
4. Great honours are great burdens.
5. He that desires honour, is not worthy of honour.
6. It is a worthier thing to deserve honour than to possess it.
7. Honour and shame from no condition rise.

HOPE
1. Hope is grief’s best music.
2. In the land of hope there is never any winter.
3. Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
4. A drowning man will clutch at a straw.
5. Death alone can kill hope.
6. Too much hope deceives.
7. Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper.
8. Who lives by hope will die by hunger.
9. While there’s life there’s hope.
10. Every cloud has a silver lining.

HOSPITALITY
1. If a man receives no guests at home, when abroad he’ll have no
hosts.
2. Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food, and an immense
quiet.
3. Welcome is the best dish.
4. A constant guest is never welcome.
5. Long visits bring short compliments.
6. Fish and guests smell in three days.
7. The first day a guest, the second day a guest, the third day a calam­
ity.
8. An unbidden guest knows not where to sit.
9. Who comes uncalled, sits unserved.
10. Every guest hates the others, and the host hates them all. (Ara­
bian)
 HOUSE
1. Fools build houses, and wise men buy them. (English)
2. Houses are built to live in, and not to look on.

HUMBLENESS
1. Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder.
2. Plain living and high thinking are no more.

HUNGER
1. Better cross an angry man than a hungry man. (Danish)
2. Hunger is the best sauce.
3. A sharp stomach makes short devotion.
4. Hunger makes hard beans sweet.
5. A hungry horse makes a clean manger.
6. All’s good in a famine.
7. Hunger increases the understanding.
8. Hunger drives the wolf out of the wood.
9. A hungry man is glad to get boiled wheat.
10. Two hungry meals make the third a glutton.
11. He whose belly is full believes not him who is fasting.

HYPOCRISY
1. Who knows not how to dissemble, knows not how to live.
2. Lip-honour costs little, yet may bring in much.
3. Many kiss the hand they wish cut off.
4. Many kiss the child for the nurse’s sake.
5. A honey tongue, a heart of gall.
6. All are not saints that go to church.
7. Bells call others, but themselves enter not into the church.

IDLENESS
1. A light-heeled mother makes a heavy-heeled daughter.
2. Standing pools gather filth.
3. Idle folks have the least leisure.
54 PROVERBS

4. The dog that is idle barks at his fleas, but he that is hunting feels
them not.
5. An idle brain is the devil’s workshop.
6. The devil tempts all, but the idle man tempts the devil.
7. Idleness is the root of all evil.
8. Sloth breeds a scab.
9. Idleness is the key to beggary.
10. Laziness goes so slowly that poverty overtakes it.
11. He that lies long abed, his estate feels it.
12. For the diligent the week has seven todays, for the slothful seven
tomorrows.
13. Idle folks lack no excuses.

IF
1. If its and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no trade for tinkers.

IGNORANCE
1. Ignorance is the peace of life.
2. Wonder is the daughter of ignorance.
3. Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.
4. Acorns were good till bread was found.
5. If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
6. Ignorance is the mother of impudence.
7. He that knows little, often repeats it.
8. Ignorance is bliss.

IMPERFECTION
1. He is lifeless that is faultless.
2. If you don’t make mistakes you don’t make anything.
3. Every man is mad on some point.
4. There are spots even in the sun.
5. No garden without its weeds.
6. There is no pack of cards without a knave.
7. Every bean has its black.
8. It is a good horse that never stumbles.
9. He who wants a mule without fault, must walk on foot.
 IMPOSSIBILITY
1. You can’t get blood out of a turnip. (English)
2. Your can’t make a silk purse out of a sew’s ear. (English)

INCONVENIENCE
1. No convenience without its inconvenience.
2. He that would have eggs must endure the cackling of hens.

INDUSTRY
1. No gain without pain.

INSPIRATION
1. A spur in the head is worth two in the heel.
2. Ninety percent of inspiration is perspiration.

JESTING
1. Many a true word is spoken in jest. (English)

JUDGE
1. A good judge conceives quickly, judges slowly.

JUSTICE
1. A just war is better than an unjust peace.
2. Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
3. There’s one law for the rich, and another for the poor.
3. There are two sides to every question.
4. Share and share alike.
5. One hour of justice is worth a hundred of prayer. (Arab)
6. Justice is blind. (Latin)
7. Mercy to the criminal may be cruelty to the people. (Arab)

KILL
1. Wild animals never kill for sport.
2. Human blood is heavy; the man that has shed it cannot run away.
(African)
3. To kill two birds with one stone.

KINDNESS
1. Kindness in itself is a reward.
2. One kind word can warmth three winter months. (Japanese)
3. The quality of mercy is not strained.
4. The Quickest generosity is the best. (Arab)
5. Worship and kindliness do not always go together.

KNOWLEDGE
1. Doubt is the key of knowledge.
2. Knowledge is a wild thing and must be hunted before it can be
tamed.
3. Knowledge is the mother of all virtue; all vice proceeds from igno­
rance.
4. Knowledge is power.
5. A dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees further of the two.
6. Knowledge is folly, except grace guide it.
7. Much science, much sorrow.
8. Poverty is the common fate of scholars.
9. He that robs a scholar, robs twenty men.
10. No knowledge without college.
11. Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse. (West African
Proverb)
LAMB
1. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. (English)

LAUGHTER
1. He laughs best who laughs last. (old English)
2. He laughs ill that laughs himself to death.
3. Laugh and grow fat.
4. Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.
5. Laugh before breakfast, you’ll cry before supper.
6. Laughter is the best medicine.
7. Laughter is the hiccup of a fool.
8. Sorrow is at parting if at meeting there be laughter.

LAW
1. Good laws often proceed from bad manners.
2. Law governs man, reason the law.
3. The law is not the same at morning and at night.
4. Laws catch flies but let hornets go free.
5. Where drums beat, laws are silent.
6. A penny-weight of love is worth a pound of law.
7. Law cannot persuade, where it cannot punish.
8. The more laws, the more offenders.
9. One suit of law breeds twenty.
10. Law suits consume time, and money, and, rest, and friends.
11. Go to law for a sheep and lose your cow.
12. Law makers should not be law breakers.
13. Ignorance of the law excuses no man.
14. Possession is nine points of the law.

LAWYER
1. A lawyer never goes to law himself.
2. A Lawyer’s opinion is worth nothing unless paid for.
3. Lawyer’s gowns are lined with the wilfulness of their clients.
4. A good lawyer must be a great liar.

LEADERSHIP
1. An army of stags led by a lion would be better than an army of
lions led by a stag. (Latin)
2. It is easy to get a thousand soldiers, but difficult to get a general.
(Chinese)
3. Without a shepherd, sheep are not a flock. (Russian)

LEARNING
1. A little learning is a dangerous thing.
2. Learning in ones youth is engraving in stone.
3. Learning is a treasure which accompanies its owner everywhere.
4. Learning is the eye of mind.
5. Learning makes a good man better and an ill man worse.
6. Learning makes a man fit company for himself.
7. Learning without wisdom is a load of books on an ass’s back.
9. Much learning makes men mads.
10. Soon learnt soon forgotten.
11. The rain of tears necessary to the harvest of learning.
12. There is no royal road to learning.
13. What we first learn we best can.
14. What’s learnt in the candle lasts till the tomb.

LENDING
1. Better give a shilling than lend and lose half a crown.
2. Lend only that which you can afford to lose.
3. He who has but one coat cannot lend it.
4. Lend your money and lose your friend.
5. Give a loan and buy a quarrel.
6. Lending is like throwing away; being paid is like finding some­
thing.
7. If you lend, you either lose the money or gain an enemy. (Alba­
nian)

LIBERTY
1. Liberty is more worth than gold.
2. Lean liberty is better than fat slavery.
3. An ox, when he is loose, licks himself at pleasure.
4. No love is foul, nor prison fair.
5. Too much liberty spoils all.
6. Liberty is not licence.
7. Who loses his liberty loses all.
8. He that marries for wealth, sells his liberty.

LIE
1. A liar is never trusted.
2. A liar can go round the world but cannot come back.
3. A liar is sooner caught than the cripple.
4. A liar should have good memory.
5. Better a lie that heals than a truth that wounds.
6. Liars bingin by imposing upon others, but end by themselves.
7. Lying rides upon debtor’s back.
8. One lie make many. (Latin)

LIFE
1. Life is one long process of getting tired.
2. Our whole life is but greater and longer childhood.
3. Life begins at forty.
4. Life means strife.
5. Life is just a bowl of cherries.
6. Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient
premises.
7. To save one man’s life is better than to build a seven-storey pa­
goda. (Chinese)
8. A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every passerby leaves
a mark. (Chinese)
9. Life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signify nothing.

LIKENESS
1. Like Father, like son. (Latin)
2. Like mother, like daughter. (English)
3. The King so his subjects.

LISTENING
1. From listening comes wisdom, and from speaking repentance. (Ital­
ian)
LOSE
1. When you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.
2. A man may lose more in an hour than be can get in seven.
3. He that is not sensible of his loss has lost nothing.
4. It signifies nothing to play well if you lose.
5. Losers are always in the wrong.
6. There is no great loss without some gain.
7. You cannot lose what you never had.

LOVE
1. In the eyes of the lover, pock-marks are dimples.
2. Affection blinds reason.
3. ‘Tis impossible to love and be wise.
4. Where love fails, we espy all faults.
5. All the world loves a lover.
6. Love is the touchstone of virtue.
7. Love will go through stone walls.
8. A man has choice to begin love, but not to end it.
9. Love and a cough cannot be hid.
10. Old love doesnot rust.
11. Never rely on love or the weather.
12. War, hunting, and love are as full of trouble as pleasure.
13. The love of the wicked is more dangerous than their hatred.
14. ‘Sweet-heart’ and ‘Honey-bird’ keep no house.
15. Love speaks, even when the lips are closed.
16. Likeness causes liking.
17. Love needs no teaching.
18. Time, not the mind, puts an end to love.
19. In love’s wars, he who flies is conqueror.
20. Love is a game in which both players always cheat.
21. He that would the daughter win, must with the mother first begin.
22. The quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love.
23. No love like the first love.
24. There is more pleasure in loving than in being beloved.
25. A mother’s love never ages.
26. He that loves the tree, loves the branch.
27. Love asks faith, and faith asks firmness.
28. Love being jealous, makes a good eye look a squint.
29. Love does much, money does everything.
30. When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.
31. Salt water and absence wash away love.
32. Blue eyes say, “love me or I die”; black eyes say, “Love me or I kill
thee.” (Spanish)
33. Love makes the world go round. (French)
34. The path of true love never did run smooth.
35. Whenever loved that loved not at the first sight.

LOYALTY
1. One thief will not rob another.
2. Hawks will not pick out hawk’s eyes.
3. No man can serve two masters.
4. You cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
5. Rats desert a sinking ship.

LUCK
1. A blind man may sometimes hit the mark.
2. It chances in an hour, that happens not in seven years.
3. The footsteps of fortune are slippery.
4. Good luck reaches farther than long arms.
5. Better be born lucky than wise.
6. Fortune is the mistress of the field.
7. Fortune, not prudence, rules the life of men.
8. Fortune knocks once at least at every man’s gate.
9. A bad penny always turns up.
10. Behind bad luck comes good luck. (Fortune)
11. Throw a lucky man into the sea, and he will come up with a fish in
his mouth. (Arab)

LUST
1. When the belly is full, the mind is among the maids.
2. Beauty’s sister is vanity, and its daughter lust.
3. A libertine life is not a life of liberty.
4. Of the myriad vices lust is the worst.
5. Whoring and baw dry do often end in beggary.
6. A man is known to be mortal by two things, sleep and lust.
7. A whore repents as often as water turns to sour milk.
8. Whores and rogues always speak of their honour.
 MAN
1. Man is a bundle of contradictions.
2. The proper study of mankind is man.
3. What a piece of work is man!

MANNERS
1. Children act in the village as they have learned at home. (Swedish)
2. Learn politeness from impolite. (Egyptian)
3. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

MARRIAGE
1. Age and wedlock tames man and beast.
2. He who marries might be sorry; he who doesnot will be sorry.
3. A man without a wife is but half a man.
4. Better be half hanged, than ill wed.
5. Marriage is a lottery.
6. Marriage makes or mars a man.
7. Marriages are made in heaven.
8. Marriage is destiny.
9. Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut after­
wards.
10. In choosing a wife, and buying a sword, we ought not to trust
another.
11. A young maid married to an old man is like a new house thatched
with old straw.
12. Better one house spoiled than two.
13. Choose a wife by your ear rather than by your eye.
14. A fair wife and a frontier castle breed quarrels.
15. Who has a fair wife needs more than two eyes.
16. It is good to marry late or never.
17. Where the mistress is the master, the parsley grows the faster.
18. It is a sad house where the hen crows louder than the cock.
19. Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are a tempest and hailstorm.
20. One wedding brings another.
21. The first wife is matrimony, the second company, the third heresy.
22. A deaf husband and a blind wife are always a happy couple. (Dan­
ish)
23. Happy is the bride that sunshines on.
24. It is better for a woman to marry a man who loves her than a man
she loves. (Arab)
25. The woman cries before wedding the man afterward. (Polish)
26. To marry once is duty, twice is folly, thrice is madness. (Dutch)
27. Weeping bride, laughing wife; laughing bride, weeping wife. (Ger­
man)

MISERLINESS
1. If a man is a miser, he will certainly have a prodigal son.
2. Narrow gathered, widely spent.
3. Nothing enters into a close hand.
4. He that hoards up money, takes pains for other men.
5. The ass loaded with gold still eats thistles.
6. Avarice is the only passion that never ages.
7. The older the bird the more unwillingly it parts with its feathers.

MISERY
1. He bears misery best, that hides it most.
2. It is misery enough to have once been happy.
3. Life and misery began together.
4. Misery loves company. (English)

MISFORTUNE
1. Misfortunes never comes alone.

MODERATION
1. The half is better than the whole.
2. Reason lies between the spur and the bridle.
3. Sow with the hand, and not with the whole sack.
4. Take no more on than you’re able to bear.
5. Do not all you can; spend not all you have; believe not all you
hear; and tell not all you know.
6. Never take a stone to break an egg when you can do it with the
back of your knife.
7. Take not a musket to kill a butterfly.
8. Burn not your house to fright the mouse away.
9. If in excess even nectar is poison.
10. A little wind kindless, much puts out the fire.
11. Too far east is west.

MONEY
1. Too much money make one mad.
2. When I had money everyone called me brother. (Polish)
3. When money speaks the truth is silent. (Russian)

MONTHS
1. On the first of March,the crows begin to search.
2. On the first of April, you may send a fool whither you will.
3. May makes or mars the wheat.
4. Shear your sheep in May, and shear them all away.
5. A fire summer it cloth foreshow. (English)
6. If February give much snow.
7. March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. (English)

MUSIC
1. Music is the food of love.
2. Music is the universal language of mankind.
3. Without music life would be a mistake.
4. Music helps not the tooth ache.
5. Yams fill the belly, but music fills the heart. (West African)

NAMES
1. A man lives a generation; a name to the end of all generations.
2. Names and nature do often agree.
3. What’s in a name?
4. Man dies and leaves a name; the tiger dies and leaves a skin.
5. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.
6. Sticks and stones will breake my bones, but names will never hurt
me. (English)

NATURE
1. Nature tells every secret once.
2. Nature does nothing in vain.
3. He who follows nature is never out of his way.
4. Nature speaks in symbols and in signs.
5. Nature hates all sudden changes.
6. Nature is conquered by obeying her.
7. That which nature paints never fades.

NECESSITY
1. Necessity knows no law.
2. Necessity breaks iron.
3. Necessity is the mother of invention.

NEGLIGENCE
1. A spark neglected burns the house.
2. Negligence of duty is a sin.

NEIGHBOURS
1. No one is rich enough to do without his neighbour.
2. Choose your neighbour before your house and your companion
before the road.
3. A near neighbour is better than a far-dwelling kinsman.
4. All is well with him who is beloved of his neighbours.
5. A great man and a great river are often ill neighbours.
6. Love your neighbour, yet pull not down your hedge.
7. Good fences make good neighbours.
8. Everyman’s neighbour is his looking glass.

NEWS
1. No news is good news.
2. News is like fish.
3. Ill news comes unsent for.

NIGHT
1. Night is the blotting paper of many sorrows.

NOBLE
1. Noble ancestry makes a poor dish at table.
2. Noble deeds are lane.

OBEDIENCE
1. Obedience is the mother of success.
2. He that cannot obey, cannot command.
3. Do as you’re bidden and you’ll never bear blame.
4. Obedience is much more seen in little things than in great.

OCCUPATIONS
1. Who hath a good trade, through all waters may wade.
2. A useful trade is a mine of gold.
3. Millers are the last to die of famine.
4. Tailors and writers must mind the fashion.
5. Sailors have a port in every storm.
6. Sailors go round the world without going into it.
7. Seamen are the nearest to death, the farthest from God.
8. Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.
9. The blood of the soldier makes the glory of the general.
10. Soldiers fight, and kings are heroes.
11. It is better to have no son than one who is a soldier.
12. Jack of all trades and master of none.

OLD AGE
1. An old man’s sayings are seldom untrue.
2. An old dog barks not in vain.
3. An old fox is not easily snared.
4. You cannot catch old birds with chaff.
5. It is good sheltering under an old hedge.
6. The best wine comes out of an old vessel.
7. An old ox makes a straight furrow.
8. Old vessels must leak.
9. Both folly and wisdom come upon with years.
10. Old men are twice children.
11. As the old cock crows so crows the young.
12. Where old age is evil, youth can learn no good.
13. When the teeth fall out, the tongue wags loose.
14. Old men and travellers may lie by authority.
15. Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to
be so.
16. The old cow thinks she was never a calf.
17. The cure for old age is the grave.
18. An old man’s staff is the rapper of death’s door.
19. Eyes that see do not grow old. (Costa Rican)
20. Old age may be sweet, if it is made like youth, but youth is burden­
some, if it be like old age.
21. Old friends and new clothes are better than new friends and old
clothes. (Japanese)
22. Old horses don’t forget the road. (Japanese)

OPPORTUNITY
1. Opportunity seldom knocks twice.
2. Make hay while the sun shines.
3. If heaven drops a date, open your mouth.
4. Time and tide wait for no man.
5. Take time when time comes.
6. An occasion lost cannot be redeemed.
7. The mill cannot grind with the water that is past.
8. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

OPTIMISM
1. When the sun sets, the moon rises; when the moon sets; the sun
rises.
2. Nothing so bad but it might have been worse.
3. God’s in His heaven; all is right with the world.
4. The darkest hour is that before the dawn.
5. Cloudy morning turn to clear afternoons.
6. After a storm comes a calm.
7. There is good land where there is foul way.
8. Nothing is so bad in which there is not something of good.
9. Nothing that is violent is permanent.
10. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. (English)
11. If winter comes can spring be far behind?

PARENTS
1. A father’s goodness is higher than the mountains; a mother’s good­
ness is deeper than the sea.
2. One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.
3. An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.
4. The owl thinks her own young fairest.
5. There’s only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has
it.
6. Late children, early orphans.

PAIN
1. Man endures pain as an undeserved punishment.
2. Women endure it as a natural heritage.
3. Pain is past pleasure.

PASSION
1. When the heart is a fire, some sparks will fly out of the mouth.
2. The end of passion is the beginning of repentance.
3. No man can guess in cold blood what he may do in a passion.
4. Serving one’s own passions is the greatest slavery.

PAST
1. There is no use crying over spilt milk.
2. Let bygones be bygones.
 PATIENCE
1. Patience is the best buckler against affronts.
2. Patience is the knot which secures the seam of victory.
3. Everything comes to him who waits.
4. Patience under cold injuries invites new ones.
5. Patience is a plaster for all sores.
6. An oak is not felled at one stroke.
7. No man is his craft’s master the first day.
8. A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
(Dutch)
9. Patience is power; with time and money the mulberry leaf becomes
silk. (Chinese)
10. They also serve who only stand and wait.

PAYING
1. Mills will not grind if you give them not water.
2. Service without rewards is punishment.
3. If you pay not a servant his wages, he will pay himself.
4. Pay beforehand and your work will be behindhand.
5. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
5. He that serves God for money, will serve the devil for better wages.

PEACE
1. Peace makes plenty.
2. Better an egg in peace than an ox in war.
3. Of all wars, peace is the end.
4. It is great victory that comes without blood.
5. One sword keeps another in the sheath.
6. When a king has good counselors, his reign is peaceful. (Ashanti)

PEN
1. The pen is mightier than the sword.
2. Pens are most dangerous tools.
3. Pen and ink is wit’s plough.
4. Pen is the tongue of the hand.
5. The mouth is a wind, the pen is a track.
 PEOPLE
1. If gold rusts what should iron do?

PERSEVERANCE
1. Perseverance the only way to success.
2. Rome was not built in a day.

PHILOSOPHY
1. Leisure is the mother of philosophy.
2. Adversity’s sweet milk philosophy.
3. All philosophy in two words-Sustain and Abstain.

PITY
1. Pity is a natural religion of humanity.
2. A man without pity is a man without ditty.
3. Where pity dwells, the peace of god is there.
4. He that pities others remembers himself.

PLEASURE
1. No pleasure without pain.
2. Pleasant hours fly past.
3. Pleasure has a sting in is tail.
4. Pleasure is not pleasant unless it cost dear.

POET
1. Poets are born but orators are made. (Latin)
2. The poet can reach where the sun cannot. (Hindi)

POLICY
1. It is easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar.
2. It is better to walk than to run; it is better to stand than to walk; it
is better to sit than to stand, it is better to lie than to sit. (Hindu)
 POLITENESS
1. A man’s hat in his hand never did him any harm. (Italian)

POLITICS
1. History is past politics, and politics is present history.
2. Politics is a blood sport.
3. There is no gambling like politics.
4. Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.
5. Politics is the madness of many for the gain of the few.

POSITION
1. Men in great places are thrice servants.

POSSESSION
1. A feather in hand is better than a bird in the air.
2. Better to have than wish.
3. He who gets does much, but he who keeps does more.
4. What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own.

POVERTY
1. There are God’s poor and the devil’s poor.
2. Who spends before the thrives, will beg before he thinks.
3. A moneyless man goes fast through the market.
4. It is a good thing to eat your brown bread first.
5. The beggar may sing before the thief.
6. Poverty is the mother of health.
7. A poor man’s table is soon spread.
8. An empty purse causes a full heart.
9. An empty purse fills the face with wrinkles.
10. The poor man’s shilling is but a penny.
11. He that is in poverty, is still in suspicion.
12. He that brings up his son to nothing, breeds a theif.
13. An empty sack cannot stand upright.
14. Poverty is the worst guard for chastity.
15. Poverty does not hurt him who has not been rich before.
16. Poverty is not a shame; but being ashamed of it is.
17. Poverty is not a crime.
18. Better go to heaven in rags than to hell in embroidery.
19. Content lodges oftener in cottages than palaces.
20. The pleasures of the mighty, the labour of the poor.
21. The rich man spends his money, the poor man his strength.
22. The rich man thinks of the future, the poor man thinks of today.
23. Patience with poverty is all a poor man’s remedy.
24. Be patient in poverty and you may become rich.
25. Poverty and anger do not agree.
26. He that has no honey in his pot, let him have it in his mouth.
27. A rich child often sits in a poor mother’s lap. (Spanish)
28. I Complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no
feet. (Persian)
29. Poverty breeds strife.
30. Poverty is a blessing hated by all man. (Italian)
31. Poverty is a pain but not a disgrace. (Scottish)
32. Poverty is worse than four hundred diseases.
33. Poverty wants some things, Luxury many things, and avarice all
things. (Latin)

PRACTICE
1. Practice makes man perfect.

PRAISE
1. True praise roots and spreads.
2. Praise youth and it will prosper.
3. Praise none too much, for all are fickle.
4. Praise is a spur to the good, a thorn to the evil.
5. A man’s praise in his own mouth stinks.
6. Neither praise nor dispraise thyself; thy actions serve the turn.
7. Praise is the reflection of virtue.
8. Praise the wise man behind his back, but a woman to her face.
(Welsh)
 PRAYER
1. Even the prayers of an ant reach to heaven.
2. If your heart is in your prayer, God will know it.
3. Labour as long lived, pray as ever dying.
4. Prayer should be the key of the day and lock of the night.
5. The family that prays together stays together.

PREJUDICE
1. Prejudice is the child of ignorance.

PRIDE
1. Pride goes before a fall.
2. Pride is the sworn enemy to content.
3. Pride, joined with many virtues, clokes them all.
4. Pride and grace dwelt never in one place.
5. Pride and poverty are ill met, yet often seen together.
6. Charity and pride do both feed the poor.
7. Pride with pride will not abide.
8. Pride often wears the cloak of humility.
9. The best of men are but men at best.
10. Remember you are but a man.

PROCRASTINATION
1. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

PROMISES
1. Promises are like pie-crust, made to be broken.
2. The day of obliterates the promise of the night.
3. Words and feathers the wind carries away.
4. An ox is taken by the horns, and a man by his word.
5. He that promises too much, means nothing.
6. One acre of performance is worth twenty of the land of promise.
7. A long tongue is a sign of a short hand.
 PROVERBS
1. A good maxim is never out of season.
2. The genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are discovered in its prov­
erbs.
3. The proverb cannot be bettered.
4. Common proverb seldom lies.
5. Proverbs are the children of experience.
6. Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations.
7. A proverb is the wit of one and the wisdom of many.
8. Proverbs are like butterflies, some are caught, others fly away.
9. Proverbs are the daughters of daily experience. (Dutch)
10. Wise men make proverbs and fools repeat them.

PUNCTUALITY
1. He that comes first to the hill, may sit where he will.
2. First come, first served.
3. Go to bed with the lamb, and rise with the lark.
4. A stitch in time saves nine.
5. Punctuality is the politeness of princes.
6. Punctuality is the soul of business.

QUALITY
1. It is not how long but how well we live.
2. You may know by a handful the whole sack.
3. Quality is more important than quantity.
4. There is little choice in rotten apples.

QUARRELLING
1. It takes two to make a quarrel.
2. Two suns cannot shine in one sphere.
3. Quarrelling dogs come halting home.
4. Two dogs strive for a bone, and a third runs away with it.
5. Strife never begets a gentle child.
6. Broken bones well set become stronger.
7. Woe to the house where there is no chiding.
8. Fools bite one another, but wise men agree together.
9. Quarrels do not last long if the wrong is only on one side.

QUESTION
1. A fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can
answer in seven years. (English)

QUIET
1. Quiet conscience sleeps in thunder.
2. Keep quiet and people will think you a philospher.
3. Quietness is a great treasure.

QUICK
1. As quick as a fox.
2. Quick returns make rich merchants.
3. Quickly come, quickly go.

RASHNESS
1. Rashness brings success to few, misfortune to many.

READING
1. Reading maketh a full man.
2. Reading is to mind, what exercise is to body.
3. The more you read, the less you understand.

REALITY
1. Cold hands, warm heart. (American)
2. Don’t judge a book by its cover. (English)
3. The teeth are smiling, but is the heart? (Congo)

REASON
1. A man without reason is a beast in season.
2. Nature, time and patience are three great Physicians.
3. Reason binds the man.
4. Reason governs the wiseman and cudgel the fool.
5. Reason rules all things.

REGRET/REPENTANCE
1. What’s done cannot be undone.
2. Win or lose, never regret.
3. Repentance is a bitter physic.
4. Short acquaintance brings repentance.
5. Sudden friendship, sure repentance.
6. A word before is worth two behind.
7. It’s too late to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.
8. It is no time to stoop when the bead is off.
9. Repentance is the loveliest of the virtues.

RELATIONS
1. At marriages and funerals, friends are discerned from kinsfolk.
2. Do no business with a kinsman.
3. There’s black sheep in every flock.
4. Every family has a skeleton in the cupboard.
5. A man cannot bear all his kin on his back.

RELIGION
1. A man without religion is like a horse without a bridle.
2. He that is of all religions is of no religion.
3. Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

REMEDIES
1. No wrong without a remedy.
2. The hand that gave the wound must give the cure.
3. One poison drives out another.
4. Desperate cuts must have desperate cures.
5. Destroy the nests and the birds will fly away.
6. The remedy may be worse than the disease.
 RESPONSIBILITY
1. Let every pedlar carry his own burden.
2. That sick man is not to be pitied who has his cure in his sleeve.
3. As you sow, so you reap.
4. He that has his hand in the lion’s mouth, must take it out as well as
he can.
5. If you leap into a well, providence is not bound to fetch you out.
6. They that dance must pay the fiddler.
7. A bad workman always blames his tools.
8. When one falls, it is not one’s foot that is to blame.
9. He who excuses himself, accuses himself.
10. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

RETRIBUTION
1. The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fire.

REVENGE
1. Blood will have blood.
2. Where blood has been split the tree of forgetfulness cannot flour­
ish.
3. Revenge never repairs an injury.
4. To take revenge is often to sacrifice oneself.
5. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
6. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
7. Revenge, the longer it is delayed, the crueller it grows.
8. Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

REVERENCE
1. Even the hen lifteth her head toward heaven when swallowing her
grain. (African)
2. Lambs have the grace and kneel when nursing. (Chinese)

RIGHT AND WRONG

1. Crime does not pay. (American)
2. There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
3. What is wrong today might be right tomorrow. (Dutch)

RUMOURS
1. Put out the fire before it spreads.

SACRIFICE
1. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
2. You must lose a fly to catch a trout.
3. Better a little loss than a long sorrow.
4. Lose a leg rather than a life.

SAFETY
1. He that is secure is not safe.
2. Better be safe than sorry.

SCEPTICISM
1. Sceptics are never deceived. (French)
2. Believe nothing and be on your guard against everything. (Latin)

SAVE/SAVING
1. He that saves his dinner will have more for his supper.
2. Money saved is money earned.

SEASONS
1. In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
2. Of fair things the autumn is fair.
3. Every mile is two in winter.
4. One swallow does not make a summer. (Greek)
5. Spring is a virgin, Summer a mother, Autumn a widow, and win­
ter a stepmother. (Polish)

SELF
1. He helps little that helps not himself.
2. Mind otherman, but most yourself.
3. Self-preservation is the first law of nature.
4. He is a slave of the greatest slave, who serves nothing but himself.
5. He is unworthy to live who lives only for himself.
6. If you want a thing well done, do it yourself.
7. Every man is his own worst enemy.
8. Beware of no man more than thyself.
9. A fox should not be of the jury at a goose’s trial.
10. No man is the worse for knowing the worst of himself.
11. No man has ever yet thoroughly mastered the knowledge of him­
self.
12. The price of your hat isn’t the measure of your brain. (African-
American)
13. You don’t measure another person’s coat by how well it fits your
body. (Malay)
14. A man is a lion in his own cause. (Scottish)
15. Blessed is he who knows his power, yet refrains from injuring oth­
ers. (Arabic)

SELF-CONTROL
1. He is a fool who cannot be angry; but he is wise who will not.
2. Govern thyself, and you will be able to govern the world. (Chi­
nese)

SERVANTS
1. Choose none for thy servant who has served thy betters.
2. If you would have a good servant, take neither a kinsman nor a
friend.
3. Who wishes to be ill-served, let him keep plenty of servants.
4. A servant and a cock must be kept but a year.
5. A good servant should never be in the way and never out of the
way.
6. A servant is known by his master’s absence.
7. If you would wish the dog to follow you, feed him.
8. So many servants, so many enemies.
9. Servants make the worst masters.
10. When an ass kicks, never tell it.
 SHAME
1. Better die with honour than live with shame.
2. He that has no shame, has no conscience.
3. He who has no shame before the world, has no fear before God.
4. He who is without shame, all the world is his.
5. Loss embraces shame.
6. Past shame past grace.
7. Single long, shame at length.

SICKNESS
1. Sickness shows us what we are.
2. Sickness soaks the purse.
3. The sickness of the body may prove the health of the soul.

SILENCE
1. Good that the teeth guard the tongue.
2. A still tongue makes a wise head.
3. Silence catches a mouse.
4. Silence doest seldom harm.
5. Talking comes by nature, silence by understanding.
6. More have repented speech than silence.
7. Still waters run deep.
8. Dumb dogs are dangerous.
9. Keep quiet and people will think you a philosopher. (Latin)
10. Speech is silver; silence is golden. (German)

SIMILARITY
1. Like cures like.

SKILL
1. Skill and confidence are the unconquered army.
2. Skill will accomplish what is denied to force.
3. The best carpenter makes the fewest chips.
 SLEEP
1. The beginning of health is sleep.
2. Sleep is a priceless treasure; the more one has of it the better it is.
3. Sleep is the poor man’s treasure.
4. Five hours sleeps a traveller, seven a scholar, eight a merchant, and
eleven every knave.
5. The sleepy fox has seldom feathered breakfasts.
6. Sleep is the image of death.

SMALL THINGS
1. Small is beautiful.
2. A little wind kindles, much puts out the fire.
3. One grain fills not a sack, but helps his fellow.
4. Small rain lays great dust.
5. For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse
was lost.
6. Straws show which way the wind blows.
7. Of a small spark, a great fire.
8. A small leak will sink a great ship.

SNOBS
1. Shallow streams make the most din.

SOLITUDE
1. Solitude is the nest of thought.
2. Better be alone than in bad company.
3. The worst solitude is to be destitude of sincere friendship.
4. Solitude prompts us to all kinds of evil.
5. He travels fastest who travels alone.
6. The lone sheep is in danger of the wolf.
7. A solitary man is either a beast or an angel.

SOLUTIONS
1. If you can’t go over, go under. (Jewish)
2. Strategy is better than strength. (Hausa proverb)
3. There is no road so smooth that it has no rough spots. (Panama­
nian proverb)

SORROW
1. Sorrow is knowledge.
2. Sorrow is born of excessive joy.
3. Grief pent up will break the heart.
4. The wound that bleeds inwardly is most dangerous.
5. Nothing dries sooner than tears.
6. A bellowing cow soon forgets her calf.
7. We weeping come into the world, and weeping hence we go.
8. Sorrow comes unsent for.
9. A cure for all sorrows is conversation.
10. Grief is lessened when imparted to others.
11. Time tames the strongest grief.
12. Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete
joy.
13. A day of sorrow is longer than a month of joy. (Chinese)

SPEECH
1. Speech is the picture of the mind.

SPENDING
1. Young prodigal in a coach will be an old beggar barefoot.
2. Who spends more than he should, shall not have to spend when he
would.
3. Lavishness is not generosity.
4. Stretch your arm no further than your sleeve will reach.
5. Scatter with one hand, gather with two.
6. Great spenders are bad lenders.

SPORTS
1. Those who play the game do not see it as clearly as those who
watch. (Chinese)
 STRENGTH
1. Strength grows stronger by being tried.
2. Men, not walls, make a city safe.
3. The strong man and the waterfall channel their own path.

SUCCESS
1. Success is the child of audacity.
2. Nothing succeeds like success.
3. Failure teaches success.
4. Man learns little from success, but much from failure.
5. The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
6. Failure is the stepping stone to success.
7. Fall seven times, stand up eight. (Japanese)
8. Success comes to those who dare and act.
9. Success has many parents, but failure is an orphan. (American)
10. Failures are the pillars of success.

SUFFERING
1. Who knows much will suffer much.
2. Who suffers much is silent.
3. No cross, no crown.
4. Bitter pills may have blessed effects.
5. We must suffer much or die young.
6. He who has never tasted what is bitter does not know what is
sweet. (German)

SUSPICION
1. Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats among birds.

TALK
1. Talk is cheap. (English)
2. Talk much and err much.
3. Talking pays no toll.
 TASTE
1. Everyone to his taste. (French)

TEACHER
1. A good master, a good scholar.
2. Every good scholar is not a good schoolmaster.
3. He teaches ill, who teaches all.
4. In every art, it is good to have a master.
5. Mother is the first and the best teacher.
6. Better unborn that untaught.
7. Better untaught than ill taught.
8. Teaching of others, teacheth the teacher.
9. The best horse needs breaking, and the aptest child needs teach­
ing.

TEMPTATION
1. Forbidden fruit is sweet.
2. All temptations are found either in hope or fear.
3. An open door may tempt a saint.
4. Opportunity makes the thief.
5. How can a crow sleep soundly when the figs are ripe?

THIEVING
1. Set a thief to catch a thief. (English)
2. There is honour among thieves. (English)

THOUGHT
1. As he thinks in his heart, so is he.
2. Simple living and high thinking.

THRIFT
1. Thrift is a great revenue.
2. Industry is fortune’s right hand, and frugality her left.
3. It is too late to spare when the bottom is bare.
4. Take care of the pence, and pounds will take care of themselves.
5. Shrouds have no pockets.
6. What we spent, we had; what we gave, we have; what we left, we
lost.
7. Better shake out the sack than start a full bag.
8. Everything is of use to a housekeeper.
9. Provision in season makes a rich house.
10. He that will not stoop for a pin will never be worth a pound.
11. A penny saved is a penny earned. (English)

TIME
1. Time is a great healer.
2. Time tames the strongest grief.
3. An inch of gold will not buy an inch of time.
4. He that has time, has life.
5. Time is a file that wears and makes no noise.
6. What greater crime than loss of time?
7. Time spent in vice or folly is doubly lost.
8. Time lost cannot be recalled.
9. Take time when time comes, lest time steal away.
10. There is a time and place for everything.
11. Everything is good in its season.
12. Things present are judged by things past.
13. The time to come is no more ours than the time past.
14. To choose time is to save time.
15. An hour in the morning worth two in the evening.
16. One hour’s sleep before midnight worth three after.
17. One moment of time is more valuable than a thousand pieces of
gold. (Korean)
18. Time flies. (Tempis fugit) (Latin)

TOLERATION
1. Live and let live. (Scottish)

TONGUE
1. Birds are entangled by their feet, and men by their tongues.
2. The ass that brays most eats least.
3. Let not thy tongue run away with thy brains.
4. Better the foot slip than the tongue.
5. Words have wings, and cannot be recalled.
6. A word and a stone let go cannot be called back.
7. While the word is in your mouth, it is your own; when it is once
spoken it is another’s.
8. The tongue is the rudder of our ship.
9. A good tongue is a good weapon.
10. Under the tongue men are crushed to death.
11. The tongue is more venomous than a serpent’s sting.
12. The tongue is not steel, yet it cuts.
13. It is better to play with the ears than the tongue.
14. Hear twice before you speak once.
15. The tongue of an idle person is never still.

TRAVEL
1. Travel broadens the mind.
2. Send a donkey to Paris; he’ll return no wiser than he went.
3. Travel makes a wise man better, but a fool worse.
4. Travellers should correct the vice of one country, by the virtue of
another.
5. A gentleman ought to travel abroad, but dwell at home.
6. The heaviest baggage for a traveller is an empty purse.
7. Nothing so necessary for travellers as languages.
8. Travel in the younger sort is a part of education, in the elder, a part
of experience.

TROUBLE - MAKING
1. Wake not a sleeping lion.
2. He who rouses a sleeping tiger expose himself to danger.
3. Kindle not a fire that you cannot extinguish.
4. Rip not old sores.
5. Pouring oil on the fire is not the way to quench it.
6. Every extra thing you own is an extra trouble (Japanese)
7. He that seeks troubles always finds it. (English)
8. Never trouble till trouble troubles you. (American)
 TRUST
1. Trust helps many both up and down.
2. Trust makes way for treachery.
3. He that trusts much, obliges much.
4. First try and then trust.
5. When you go to dance, take heed whom you take by the hand.
6. Trust not a woman when she weeps.
7. He who trusts not, is not deceived.
8. Where there is no trust there is no love.

TRUTH
1. Better speak truth rudely, than lie covertly.
2. Truth never grows old.
3. Truth will conquer, falsehood will kill.
4. Truth will come to light.
5. Truth and oil are ever above.
6. Truth may be blamed, but cannot be shamed.
7. Dying men speak true.
8. A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
9. Truth has a scratched face.
10. Speak the truth and run.
11. Truth is a spectre that scares many.
12. No one was ever ruined by speaking the truth.
13. All truths are not to be told.
14. Better a lie that heals than a truth that wounds.
15. The grave of one who dies for truth is holy ground. (German)
16. Always tell the truth in the form of a joke. (American)

UNCERTAINTY
1. Nothing is certain but uncertainty. (Latin)
2. To be or not to be, that is the question.

UNDERSTANDING
1. Understanding is the wealth of wealth.
2. I do and I understand. (Chinese)
 UNITY
1. Even tender creepers when united are strong. (Tamil)
2. Kingdoms divided soon fall.
3. Let us be like the lines that lead to the centre of a circle, uniting
there and not like parallel lines that never join. (Hasidic Proverb)
4. When spiderwebs unite they can tie up a lion. (Ethiopian)

USE
1. The used key is always bright.
2. Iron with use grows bright.
3. Iron not used soon rusts.
4. Use legs and have legs.

VAIN
1. Vain glory blossoms but never bears.

VANITY
1. Vanity is the sixth sense.

VARIETY
1. It takes all sorts to make a world. (English)

VENGEANCE
1. Vengeance is a dish that should be eaten cold.

VICE
1. Vice is often clothed in virtues habit.
2. Vice makes virtue shine.

VIRTUE
1. Virtue seldom walks forth without vanity at her side.
2. The highest virtue is always against the law.
3. Better do a good deed near home, than travel a thousand miles to
burn incense. (Chinese)
4. He that sows virtue, reaps fame.
5. Riches adorn the dwelling; virtue adorns the person.
6. The rarer action lies in virtue than in vengeance.
7. Virtue and happiness are mother and daughter.
8. Virtue is a jewel of great price.
9. Virtue is its own reward.
10. Virtue is praised by all but practiced by few.
11. Virtue is the beauty of the mind.
12. Virtue is the only true nobility.
13. Virtue never grows old.

WAR
1. War is death’s feast.
2. When war begins, then hell opens.
3. In war all suffer defeat, even the victors.
4. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
5. All may begin a war, few can end it.
6. In war, it is not permitted twice to err.

WEAKNESS
1. The thread breaks where it is weakest.
2. Whether the pitcher strikes the stone, or the stone the pitcher, it is
bad for the pitcher.
3. The earthen pot must keep clear of the brass kettle.
4. Willows are weak, yet they bind other wood.
5. A low hedge is easily leaped over.

WEALTH
1. They that have got good store of butter, may lay it thick on their
bread.
2. The rich knows not who is his friend.
3. Money is round, and rolls away.
4. Money is the root of all evil.
5. The abundance of money ruins youth.
6. Riches serve a wise man but command a fool.
7. Wealth infatuates as well as beauty.
8. Money makes the man.
9. Wealth is the test of man’s character.
10. Money makes money.
11. Wine and wealth change wise men’s manners.
12. Manners and money make a gentleman.
13. Land was never lost for want of a heir.
14. Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.
15. A rich man’s joke is always funny.
16. Beauty is potent but money is omnipotent.
17. Money makes a man free everywhere.
18. A golden key opens an iron lock.
19. Money governs the world.
20. When money speaks world is silent.
21. Money is the sinews of war.
22. The love of money and the love of learning rarely meet.
23. The devil comes where money is; where it is not he comes twice.
(Swedish)
24. He that makes haste to be rich will not be innocent.
25. Riches certainly make themselves wings.

WEATHER
1. The paleness of the pilot is a sign of a storm.
2. When the wind is in the south; it’s in the rain’s mouth.
3. When the wind is in the west, the weather is at its best.
4. When the wind is west, the fish bite best.
5. Do business with men when the wind is in the north-west.
6. Cold weather and knaves come out of the north.
7. The first and last frosts are the worst.
8. The morning sun never lasts a day.
9. A fairday in winter is the mother of a storm.

WIFE
1. A cheerful wife is the joy of life.
2. He who does not honour his wife dishonours himself. (Mexican)
 WILL
1. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
2. You can lead a horse to the water, but you can’t make him drink.
3. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
4. Where your will is ready, your feet are light.
5. All things are easy that are done willingly.
6. Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.
7. One volunteer is worth two pressed men.
8. If the lad to go to the well against his will, either the can will break
or the water will spill.
9. Obstinate oxen waste their strength.
10. Mere wishes are silly fishes.

WISDOM
1. Trouble brings experience and experience brings wisdom.
2. Wisdom goes not always by years.
3. Wisdom is neither inheritance nor legacy.
4. Wisdom is a treasure for all time.
5. Without wisdom, wealth is worthless.
6. A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone.
7. Wisdom and virtue are like the two wheels of a cart.
8. By wisdom peace, by peace plenty.
9. The fool wanders, the wise man travels.
10. A wise head makes a close mouth.
11. Wise is the man who has two loaves, and sells one to buy a lily.
12. The wise seek wisdom, a fool has found it.
13. A wise man need not blush for changing his purpose.
14. A wise man esteems every place to be his own country.
15. No man is wise at all times.
16. A wise man commonly has foolish children.
17. A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the
public opinion. (Chinese)
18. A wise man adapts himself to circumstances, as water shapes itself
to the vessel that holds it.
19. It is easy to be wise after the event. (English)
20. Wisdom comes by suffering. (Greek)
21. Wisdom is better than strength.
22. Wise men learn by other men’s mistakes, fools by their own. (Latin)
23. The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.

WISH
1. If wishes were horses, beggars might ride. (English)

WOMEN
1. No war without a woman.
2. Women are like wasps in their anger.
3. A woman’s mind and a winter wind change oft.
4. A woman either loves or hates in extremes.
5. A maid and a virgin is not all one.
6. With women the heart argues, not the mind.
7. Women laugh when they can, and weep when they will.
8. A woman’s strength is in her tongue.
9. Women and sparrows twitter in company.
10. Silence is a woman’s best garment.
11. A woman’s work is never done.
12. A woman and a glass are ever in danger.
13. Women’s instinct is often truer than men’s reasoning.
14. Men make houses, women make homes.
15. Woman is the confusion of man.
16. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
17. A hundred men can build an encampment, but it takes a woman
to make a home. (Chinese)
18. Men make roads; but it is the women who teach children how to
walk in them. (French)
19. Woman was the second mistake of God.

WONDER
1. No wonder can last more than three days. (Italian)

WORDS
1. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
2. All foods are good to eat, but not all words are fit to speak. (Italian)
3. Deliver your words not by number but by weight.
4. Fair words and foul play cheat both young and old.
5. Flow of words is not always flow of wisdom.
6. Good words cool more than cold water.
7. The bird is known by its note, the man by his words.
8. There is great difference between word and deed.
9. Words are mere bubbles of water, but deeds are drops of gold.
10. Words bind men.
11. Words cut more than swords.

WORK
1. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
2. No bees, no honey; no work, no money.
3. The Gods sell things at the price of toil. (Greek)
4. Work is worship.

WORLD
1. The world is a net, the more we stir in it, the more we are en­
tangled.
2. The world is stage and every man plays his part.
3. The world is a ladder for some to go up and some down.
4. Our country is a world in itself.

WORRY
1. It is not work that kills, but worry.
2. Take things as they come.
3. Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.
4. Each day has its care, but each care has its day.
5. Worry is the interest paid on troubles before it becomes due.

WORTH
1. A man’s worth is the worth of his land.
2. A man is valued as he makes himself valuable.
3. The worth of a thing is best known by the want of it.
4. The cow knows not what her tail is worth till she has lost it.
5. Would you know what money is, go borrow some.
6. All things in their being are good for something.
7. The game is not worth the candle. (French)

WRITING
1. Words fly, writings remain.
2. Writing destroys the memory.
3. Literature is a good staff but a bad crutch.
4. You cannot open a book without learning something.
5. The style is the man.
6. Think much, speak little, and write less. (Italian)

YOUTH
1. Youth and white paper take any impression.
2. Youth is drunkenness without wine.
3. Reckless youth makes rueful old age.
4. Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age. (French)
5. Youth comes but once in life.
6. Youth will be served. (English)

ZEAL
1. When it is a virtue, is a dangerous one. (English)
2. Zeal is fit only for wise men but is found mostly in fools. (English)
3. Zeal without knowledge is a run away horse.
4. Zeal without prudence is frenzy.

ZERO
1. Zero is the beginning and end of everything.