Motivational Quotes

Proverbs

A proverb is good sense brought to a point.

- Morley, John

Best Quotes about Proverbs

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

Russell, John

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

Huxley, Aldous

Examine what is said, not him who speaks.

Arab Proverb

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

Chinese Proverb

If you bow at all, bow low.

Chinese Proverb

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

Dahlberg, Edward

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

French Proverb

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

Morely, John

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

Jewish Proverb

10.

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

Stevens, Wallace

11.

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

Oriental Proverb

12.

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

Florio, John

13.

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

Joubert, Joseph

14.

The best armor is to keep out of range.

Italian Proverb

15.

A proverb is much matter distilled into few words.

Fuller, R. Buckminster

16.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

17.

First secure an independent income, then practice virtue.

Greek Proverb

18.

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

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

19.

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

Sontag, Susan

20.

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

Japanese Proverb

21.

Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.

Slovenian Proverb

22.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

23.

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

Chinese Proverb

24.

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

Bulgarian Proverb

25.

A smiling face is half the meal.

Latvian Proverb

26.

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

Spanish Proverb

27.

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

Chinese Proverb

28.

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

Malayan Proverb

29.

Praise youth and it will prosper.

Irish Proverb

30.

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

Indian Proverb

31.

The big thieves hang the little ones.

Czech Proverb

32.

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

Dutch Proverb

33.

One kind word can warm three winter months.

Japanese proverb

34.

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

Hardy, Thomas

35.

He who would leap high must take a long run.

Danish Proverb

36.

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

Jewish Proverb

37.

Ask about your neighbors, then buy the house.

Jewish Proverb

38.

Worries go down better with soup than without.

Jewish Proverb

39.

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

Latin Proverb

40.

Never give a child a sword.

Latin Proverb

41.

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

Scottish Proverb

42.

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

Belgian Proverb

43.

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

Czech Proverb

44.

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

Johnson, Samuel

45.

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

Keats, John

46.

The reverse side also has a reverse side.

Japanese Proverb

47.

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

German Proverb

48.

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