C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Proverbs (Famous)
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
A baker’s dozen.
A cat may look at a king.
A carpenter’s known by his chips.
A dwarf on a giant’s shoulder sees farther of the two.
A fair exterior is a silent recommendation.
A happy accident.
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
All that glisters is not gold.
All’s well that ends well.
Although the last, not least.
An undutiful daughter will prove an unmanageable wife.
A penny for your thought.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.
As busie as a bee.
As sure as a gun.
As you sow, y’ are like to reap.
At our wittes end.
Bread is the staff of life.
As clear and as manifest as the nose in a man’s face.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Build castles in Spain.
Build castles in the air.
But ne’er the rose without the thorn.
Better late than never.
Better a bad excuse, than none at all.
Birds of a feather will gather together.
Better halfe a loafe than no bread.
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise.
Blood is thicker than water.
Better your room than your company.
By hooke or crooke.
Can one desire too much of a good thing?
Couldst thou both eat thy cake and have it?
Cut and come again.
Delays have dangerous ends.
Deceive not thy physician, confessor, nor lawyer.
Comparisons are odious.
Dark as pitch.
Deeds, not words.
Diamonds cut diamonds.
Enough is as good as a feast.
Eureka! Eureka!
Every man for himself, his own ends, the devil for all.
Every man is the architect of his own fortunes.
Facts are stubborn things.
Faint heart ne’er won fair lady.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Fingers were made before forks and hands before knives.
Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.
Fat, fair, and forty.
Fortune befriends the bold.
From the crown of our head to the sole of our foot.
God defend the right.
Give an inch, he’ll take an ell.
God never sendeth mouth but he sendeth meat.
Go West, young man! Go West.
God’s mills grind slow but sure.
Fitted him to a T.
Give the devil his due.
Greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Handsome is that handsome does.
Half the world knows not how the other half lives.
He always looked a given horse in the mouth.
Hail, fellow, well met.
Harp not on that string.
Half as sober as a judge.
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
Have you summoned your wits from wool-gathering?
Have yee him on the hip?
He knew what is what.
He must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.
Here is the devil-and-all to pay.
He must needes go that the dyvell dryveth.
He went away with a flea in ’s ear.
He that is down can fall no lower.
He that has two strings t’ his bow.
He’s a sure card.
He that runs may read.
He will give the devil his due.
I have other fish to fry.
Hit the nail on the head.
Hold their noses to the grindstone.
How well I feathered my nest.
His bark is worse than his bite.
Hide their diminished heads.
I am almost frightened out of my seven senses.
I am just going to leap into the dark.
If you would be loved, love and be lovable.
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
I’ll make the fur fly ’bout the ears of the old cur.
I can tell where my own shoe pinches me.
Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
I find the medicine worse than the malady.
I have you on the hip.
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
It is a poor sport that is not worth the candle.
I will dig in the last ditch.
I won’t quarrel with my bread and butter.
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
Let us do or die.
Laugh and be fat.
Leap out of the frying pan into the fire.
Let pride go afore, shame will follow after.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Let the worst come to the worst.
Living from hand to mouth.
Look before you ere you leap.
Life is short, yet sweet.
Looked unutterable things.
Men are but children of a larger growth.
Make a virtue of necessity.
Man proposes, but God disposes.
Matches are made in heaven.
Mad as a March hare.
Moche Crye and no Wull.
Much of a muchness.
More knave than fool.
My man’s as true as steel.
No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre.
Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.
No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.
No cross, no crown.
Neat, not gaudy.
Necessity knows no law except to conquer.
Needle in a bottle of hay.
Not if I know myself at all.
Nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Nought venter nought have.
Not lost, but gone before.
On his last legs.
Oft times many things fall out between the cup and the lip.
One foot in the grave.
One hour’s sleep before midnight is worth three after.
Oil on troubled waters.
Of two evils I have chose the least.
Others set carts before the horses.
Ossa on Pelion.
Rome was not built in one day.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
Plain as a nose in a man’s face.
Put himself upon his good behavior.
Pity’s akin to love.
Rise with the lark and with the lark to bed.
Praise the bridge that carried you over.
Out of syght, out of mynd.
Right as a trivet.
Robbe Peter and pay Paule.
Set the cart before the horse.
She is no better than she should be.
So obliging that he ne’er oblig’d.
Seize time by the forelock.
Silence gives consent.
She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.
See and to be seen.
Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride a gallop.
Speech is silver, silence is golden.
Snug as a bug in a rug.
Spick and span new.
Smell a rat.
Strike the iron whilst it is hot.
Spare your breath to cool your porridge.
Smooth runs the water, where the brook is deep.
Speak boldly, and speak truly, shame the devil.
The burnt child dreads the fire.
The coast was clear.
That which is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.
Tell tales out of schoole.
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.
The better day the better deed.
Take Time by the forelock.
The more haste, ever the worst speed.
The more the merrier.
The mill will never grind with the water that is past.
The game is up.
The King is dead! Long live the King!
The end must justify the means.
The fat is in the fire.
The eyes have one language everywhere.
There’s luck in odd numbers.
There’s a time for all things.
There can no great smoke arise, but there must be some fire.
There are some remedies worse than the disease.
The remedy is worse than the disease.
There is no jesting with edge tools.
The very pink of perfection.
There, though last, not least.
The time is out of joint.
This peck of troubles.
The short and the long of it.
The will for the deed.
They that touch pitch will be defiled.
Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Those that God loves, do not live long.
’Tis nothing when you are used to it.
Thy will for deed I do accept.
’Tis neither here nor there.
Two of a trade can ne’er agree.
To make a mountain of a mole-hill.
Two heads are better than one.
Turn over a new leaf.
To make a virtue of necessity.
To put a girdle round about the world.
Unquiet meals make ill digestions.
We’ll take the good-will for the deed.
We have here other fish to fry.
Time is money.
Virtue is her own reward.
We have scotch’d the snake, not killed it.
What will Mrs. Grundy say?
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for a gander.
What mare’s nest hast thou found?
Went in at the one eare and out at the other.
When the lion’s skin cannot prevail, a little of the fox’s must be used.
When the age is in, the wit is out.
Where there’s marriage without love there will be love without marriage.
Where God hath a temple, the devil will have a chapel.
Where the streame runneth smoothest, the water is deepest.
Where the drink goes in, there the wit goes out.
You must take the will for the deed.