"Proverb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a cleared field or two, one of which seemed yet under cultivation and shewed corn stalks and pumpkin vines, but the other was in that poverty-stricken state described by the proverb as 'I once had.' The house was a mere skeleton. Clapboards, indeed, there were still, and shingles; but doors and windows had long since been removed—by man or Time,—and through the open spaces you could see here a cupboard door, and there a stairway, and there a bit of partition wall ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... hastens from one god to another, saying: "Don't grudge me this favour; the case concerns me closely. I shan't forget you when the time comes. One good turn deserves another" (Manus manum lavat). This is exactly the Neapolitan proverb, "One hand washes the other, and both together wash the face." "Una mano lava l'altra e tutt'e due si lavano la faccia," is more or less the modern version. In chapter vii. we have also "gallum in suo sterquilino plurimum posse," ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... your confidence. Be on your guard, for you have nearly fallen the victims of those people. They will always be your implacable enemies. And you, also, poor, interesting girl!" added the Jesuit, speaking to Mother Bunch, "follow my advice—fear these people. Sleep, as the proverb ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... says: "It would be necessary to write the history of all Europe if we attempted to describe all the feuds into which King John entered with chivalrous bravery, but also with frivolity. It then became a proverb, that 'nothing can be done without the help of God and of the ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... An old proverb says, "Like master, like man." Let us pass, then, from the valet of Athos to the valet of Porthos, from Grimaud ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... reply," pursued Charles; "the proverb is plain enough, that 'silence gives consent.' Very good, Monsieur de Bragelonne; I am now in a position to satisfy you; whenever you please, therefore, you can leave for Paris, for which ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Agathemer replied, "we not only have had a long ride but we may have to set out on a longer tomorrow, and you know the proverb: ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... right have we to know or to believe? And if we can know or believe nothing, what should we try to do? And how indeed can we do anything? Every man's fate is determined by his heredity and his environment. In the Arab proverb he is born with his fate bound to his neck. In the course of life we must do that which has been already cut out for us. Our parts were laid for us long before we appeared to take them. He is indeed a strong man who can vary the cast or give a different ...
— The Philosophy of Despair • David Starr Jordan
... man, who was generally called "Place,[452] the tailor," but who was politician, political economist, etc., etc. He sat in the room above his shop—he was then a thriving master tailor at Charing Cross—surrounded by books enough for nine, to shame a proverb. The blue books alone, cut up into strips, would have measured Great Britain for oh-no-we-never-mention-'ems, the Highlands included. I cannot find a biography of this worthy and able man. I happened to mention William Frend, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... I may, without vanity, lay claim to the possession of a more progressive spirit than the members of the drug schools, for their disincilination to adopt anything new in the treatment of disease has passed into a proverb. It might naturally be supposed that any one who should come forward with a discovery by which the suffering portion. of the human family would be benefited, would be welcomed with open arms by the medical fraternity, or, that at least he would be allowed ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... wise or simple, as commonly, understood, it is no proverb for me. As poor plodder along the way of life, it were impossible for me to know content. So urge no farther, Robert. I am going out into the world a wealth-seeker, and not until wealth is gained do ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... legend, is the mention of the flight of Demosthenes by AEschines and Dinarchus. In the more amplified editions of Erasmus's Adages, after the publication of the Apophthegmata, he repeats the story in illustration of a Latin proverb (probably only a version of the Greek), "Vir fugiens et denuo pugnabitur;" and I find in some collections of the sixteenth century both the Latin and Greek given upon the authority of Plutarch! Langius, in his Polyanthea (a copious common-place book which would outweigh twenty of our late Laureate's) ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... doctor," said Henry; "but you know the old proverb,—that ill-gotten wealth never thrives; so that I don't regret not finding this money, for I am sure we should have been none the happier with it, and perhaps not ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... everything and remembered everything, that one could observe a peculiar serenity on his face whenever he came down from his study after reading a book of Homer. The cost of learning the language of Homer is not small; but so are all fair things difficult, as the Greek proverb runs, and the reward in this case is precious ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... your chickens before they be hatched," is a well-known proverb in English, and most people, if asked what was its origin, would probably appeal to La Fontaine's delightful fable, La Laitire et le Pot au Lait.[1] We all know Perrette, lightly stepping along from her village to the town, carrying the milk-pail ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... Camanches resort to the buffalo dance only on rare occasions, but when they do undertake it, their persistence is admirable; and for this reason, the other tribes have a saying, or sort of proverb, that when the Camanches dance for "buffalo" it is a good moon to hunt, but a bad moon on the war-path. Their meaning probably is, that the buffalo are sure to "come," when the Camanches dance for them, but that the Camanches ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... should guard himself against the defects that he might have, without knowing it." That is a Persian proverb, which you will find in Hafiz. I believe you never ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... meant, and what common wisdom was. He said it was a sensible proverb, but brutal, which it was ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... was the prisoner of Bess of Hardwick. It is a wonderful house, indeed—enormous, and yet completely covered with the tapestry and the pictures of the time.... The casement windows have never been touched since Queen Elizabeth was here, and are enormous. (There is a local proverb which speaks of the hall as "all window and no wall.") The result is that, in spite of heavy hanging curtains, the candles are blown out if you go near the windows.... The portrait of the first Cavendish—who was usher of Cardinal Wolsey, and who married Bess of Hardwick, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... as well as born, the proverb notwithstanding. They are made possible by the general love of poetry and the consequent imperious demand for it. When this is nonexistent, poets become mute, the atmosphere stifles them. There would have been no Shakespeare had there been ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... hay while the sun shines, and as soon as it's dark," said Jem, earnestly, and unconscious of the peculiarity of his use of the proverb. "Let's lie still just as the others do, and then, I'm sorry for 'em; but this here's a case ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... her then, but unluckily her husband was lying beside her, and one knows that foxes, great and small, run like the wind. Really it seems as if there was not a living creature left for me to prey upon but a wolf, and, as the proverb says: "One wolf does not bite another." However, let us see what this village can produce. I am as ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... the miller's daughter of the Mill o' Blink (a sad come-down, said foolish neighbours, for a Halliday of Templandmuir) there was a sudden change about the laird. In our good Scots proverb, "A miller's daughter has a shrill voice," and the new leddy of Templandmuir ("a leddy she is!" said the frightened housekeeper) justified the proverb. Her voice went with the skirl of an east wind through the rat-riddled mansion ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... fate was not yet weary of pursuing me; and in my experience I fully realised the old proverb of, "out of the frying- pan into the fire." On this vessel, and during the time we had to keep quarantine in Alexandria, I was almost worse off than during my stay in Beyrout. It is necessary, in dealing with the captain of a vessel of this description, ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... monk Roger Bacon, must have been some one of the same type. Another Christian exegete of the same period, William of Mara, cites Rashi's commentary under the title of Perus. The admiration felt for Nicholas de Lyra, which now seems somewhat excessive, is expressed in the well-known proverb: Si Lyra non lyrasset, totus mondus delirasset. A modification of the proverb, si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherius non saltasset, is not an exaggeration; for the works of the Franciscan monk were soon translated into German, and they exercised a profound influence ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... cito dat. O truest proverb! One fresh man on Gallipoli to-day was worth five afloat on the Mediterranean or fifty loafing around London in the Central Force. At home they are carefully totting up figures—I know them—and explaining to the P.M. and the Senior Wranglers ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... and who no doubt drew their skirts away lest they should be polluted by rubbing against him, if they could hear some of the meditations in his book and learn the pride of this despised tramp. Many times he repeats the proverb: Rem carendo non fruendo cognoscimus—By losing not by enjoying the world we make it ours. Out of the utter ruin and abandonment of his life he seems to have won for himself a spiritual possession akin to that of the saints, only inverted as it were. The impersonal detachment ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... coats in which they wrap themselves, head and all, during the hot hours of the day. The Italians, too, seem to have been fully aware of this, for in Naples and Southern Italy they have an ancient proverb in the Neapolitan dialect:—Quel che para lo freddo para lo caldo—"What is protection against cold is ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... [The proverb, "A hair of the dog that bit you," which probably had originally a literal meaning, has long been used to inculcate the advice of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... to them were too common for her to think about. Joyce looked out of the window with a sort of don't-care expression, and said something in French. Of course I couldn't understand it, but she told me afterward that it was a well-known proverb about the opinion of ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... there is a sort of working model in the presence of the snow in Palestine, especially in the light of the old proverb about the impossibility of snow in Egypt. Palestine is wilder, less wealthy and modernised, more religious and therefore more realistic. The issue between the things only a European can do, and the things ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... of Tassa sped they thence, to Corp the Gray: On the northern bank of Naymon was his hold, and there he lay; And before the men of Munster, as their champion did he stand: He hath wrought-so runs the proverb-evil, longer than his hand. As to Corp appeared the vision: "Say," he cried, "what names ye boast!" "Ruin, one is called," they answered; "one, The Gathering of the Host!" An assembled host I welcome," answered them the gray Corp Lee; "Ruin I abhor": "And ruin," ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... he said, "in this, the quickest way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act and act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... true the fair, so true the youth, Maids, to this day, their story tell: And hence the proverb rose, that Truth Lies in the ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... course of this communication, with which he is indulged from his tender years, he learns like a parrot, by rote, the whole circle of French compliments, which you know are a set of phrases ridiculous even to a proverb; and these he throws out indiscriminately to all women, without distinction in the exercise of that kind of address, which is here distinguished by the name of gallantry: it is no more than his making love to every woman who will give him the hearing. It is an exercise, by the repetition ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... her fall on one knee, and thus come in contact with the wet soil and gravel, which, however harmless they might have proved to a grey dress, by no means improved the colour of a light silk one. 'Misfortunes never come alone,' it is said; and though I am not myself a firm believer in this proverb, it certainly proved true with regard to Mabel Ellis, though these misfortunes were entirely the results of her pride and self-will, so she does ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... an old proverb that "misfortunes never come alone." Thus it was with the expeditions planned by the "all talents" ministry—t was hoped that the reverses in the Mediterranean might be compensated in the South Atlantic Oceans; but this hope was illusive. In October 1806, a re-enforcement had been sent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... prettiness which is often more effective than downright beauty. There was, indeed, something very charming about her; and, if she was a blonde, I have no reason to think she was as fickle as the Venetian proverb paints that complexion of woman; or that she had not every quality which would have excused any one but Tonelli for ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... all strangers; this he did in imitation of Hercules, who always returned upon his assailants the same sort of violence that they offered to him; sacrificed Busiris, killed Antaeus in wrestling, and Cycnus in single combat, and Termerus by breaking his skull in pieces (whence, they say, comes the proverb of "a Termerian mischief"), for it seems Termerus killed passengers that he met, by running with his head against them. And so also Theseus proceeded in the punishment of evil men, who underwent the same violence from him which they had inflicted upon others, justly suffering after the manner ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... period in American history. The negroes complain, and with too much cause, of political oppression and exclusion from the suffrage, but they seem to be on good terms with their "oppressors," and on the principle of the old Spanish proverb that "he is my friend who brings grist to my mill," the Southern black has no better friend ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... Man (page 60) has the same idea that we often hear expressed in the proverb "A hair from the same ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... murmured: "Do I really?" The disturbance was due almost exclusively to a fierce imperial joy in the prospect of immediate wealth. The origin of the wealth scarcely affected him. The associations of the wealth scarcely affected him. He understood in a flash the deep wisdom of that old proverb (whose truth he had often hitherto denied) that money has no smell. Perhaps there might be forty good reasons against his accepting the inheritance, but they were all ridiculous. Was he to abandon his share of the money to ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... looker on," says Mr. Trench in explanation, "at a game of hurling, seated indolently on the wall, always imagines that he could improve on the strokes of the actual players, and if you will listen to him, would have played the game much better than they, a proverb of sufficiently wide ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... listening to the fine singing and the sound of the bells; and when they came back to their ships every man told his opinion of the Christian man's worship. Kjartan expressed his pleasure at it, but most of the others scoffed at it; and it went according to the proverb, "the king had many ears," for this was told to the king. He sent immediately that very day a message to Kjartan to come to him. Kjartan went with some men, and the king received him kindly. Kjartan ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... you were so hard-hearted that you were quite a proverb. Why, I have been told that you used to ask girls dreadful puzzling questions, like 'Who was Caesar Borgia?' 'What do you know of Edwin and Morcar?' ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... corner stings himself to death. A coward blames the gods. They laugh and let him die A man goes forward —Native Proverb ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... civilization, an era, by its love affairs. So a book that would tell of life, that would paint the manners of men, and thus show their hearts, must be a love story. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," runs the proverb, and, mind you, it says heart—not head, not mind, but heart; as a man thinketh in his heart, in that part of his nature where reside his altruistic ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... proposes—" You know the proverb, which holds good in the case of women too. I know my prolonged silence must have surprised you; but I have been so worried and anxious, of late, that writing has become an impossibility. Danton Hall has become a maison ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... there was nothing corresponding to what we call literature, every saying, every proverb, every story handed down from father to son received very soon a kind of hallowed character. They became sacred heir-looms, sacred because they came from an unknown source, from a distant age. There was a stage in ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... rest did nothing more than put the worst school of Italian love poetry into an awkward English dress. The Italian proverb says, "Inglese italianizzato, Diavolo incarnato," that an Englishman Italianized is the very devil incarnate, and one feels the truth of it here. The very titles of their poems set one yawning, and their wit is the cause of the dulness ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... and the name became the occasion of a proverb, as the historian tells us, which survived down to the period of his writing, and probably long after, when men were accustomed to say, 'In the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.' The provision of all sorts that we need has certain ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... conduct to the end of his life, and took pleasure in watching and recording Deane's disreputable career and miserable end. "As he rose like a rocket, so he fell like the stick," a metaphor which has passed into a proverb, was imagined by Paine to meet Deane's case. [1] The immediate consequence of Paine's resignation was to oblige him to hire himself out as clerk to an attorney in Philadelphia. In his office, Paine earned his daily bread ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... since the imprisonment by James II. of the Seven Bishops—one of them Sir Jonathan Trelawney—a popular proverb throughout Cornwall, the whole of this song was composed by me in the year 1825. I wrote it under a stag-horned oak in Sir Beville's Walk in Stowe Wood. It was sent by me anonymously to a Plymouth paper, and there it attracted the notice of Mr. Davies Gilbert, who reprinted it ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... flourished amazingly since he succeeded to his father's business in the university city, and attained that position of independence which enabled him to force the rule that each horse in his stable was to be hired only in its proper turn, thus originating the proverb, "Hobson's choice," that is, "this or none." Despite his ever growing wealth and advanced years, Hobson continued his regular journeys to London until the outbreak of the plague caused the authorities to suspend the carrier service for a time. This ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... you come from?" he said, in a round, mellow, genial voice, which was singularly pleasant to the ear. "'Listeners hear no good of themselves.' You've proved the proverb." ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... it, I tell you. And the poor thing has been living on charity. Just imagine whether you are not quite as able to feed him as Gigi is!" So she persuaded me. But at first I did it to please her, for I told her our proverb, which says there can be nothing so untidy about a house as children and chickens. He was such a dirty little boy, with only one shoe and a battered hat, and he was always singing at the top of his voice, and throwing things into the well in ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... This is one of the reasons why, as a rule, boards and commissions are far less effective in getting things done than single men with clear-cut authority and equally clear-cut responsibility. Another principle, so well known that it has almost become a proverb, is to delegate everything you can, to do nothing that you can get someone else to do for you. But the wisdom of letting a good man alone is less commonly understood. It is sometimes as important for the superior officer not to worry his subordinate with useless orders ...
— The Training of a Forester • Gifford Pinchot
... blockheads, because he is without excuse. But Bramston, in the assumed character of an ignorant coxcomb, maintains that all scholars are blockheads on account of their scholarship. J. BOSWELL, JUN. There is, I believe, a Spanish proverb to the effect that, 'to be an utter fool a man must know Latin.' A writer in Notes and Queries (5th S. xii. 285) suggests that Johnson had in mind Acts ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... speech of Mr. Webster, and the defence thereof by Mr. Stuart, the letter of the retainers and the letters of the retained, will be a curiosity; the conduct of the whigs and democrats an amazement, and the peculiar institution a proverb amongst all the nations of the earth. In the turmoil of party politics, and of personal controversy, let us not forget continually to move the previous question, whether Freedom or Slavery is to prevail in America. There is no attribute of God which is not on our ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... moments when she addressed her, Bice—that is to say, according to English pronunciation, Beeshee (you would probably call it Beetchee if you learned to speak Italian in England, but the Contessa had the Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth, according to the proverb), which, as everybody knows, is the contraction of Beatrice. She was called Miss Beachey in the household, a name which was received—by the servants at least—as a quite proper and natural name; a great deal more sensible than Forno-Populo. Her position, however, in the little party was a quite ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... evidently used the utmost precaution in her visits to the top landing. In spite of the pains they took to watch her movements, it was some days before they found the propitious moment. "All things come to those who wait," says the old proverb, however, and it proved true in ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... with her presence she told how she longed to see the plant before which Linnaeus had fallen on his knees; and she walked up this selfsame hill and with eyes full of tears gazed on the prickly shrub with its mist of golden-colored, apricot-scented flowers. The old Hampshire proverb says, "When furze is out of flower kissing is out of fashion;" and, sure enough, there is not a month in the year in which you may not find a blossom or two among ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... old proverb has it, 'All they that take the sword shall perish by the sword,'" continued the count. "It is not your fault, master, if the Electoral Prince does not know this proverb. Now farewell, master, and be of good courage, for another good proverb says, 'Fortune smiles on the brave.' ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... especially, and of the Greeks in the Levant in general, have been mainly due to the want of commonsense in the race, and the incapacity of individuals to subordinate their personal views and interests to the general good. The Italians have a proverb, "Six Greeks, seven captains," which in a pithy way expresses the reason why the Greeks have never been able to succeed in any national movement—the necessary subordination and self-effacement needed for civic or military solidity are, and always have been absolutely out of ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... appeared to be troubled exceedingly at the loss of a valuable diamond, and asked Nixon if he could inform him where it was to be found. Henry had hidden the diamond himself, with a view to test the prophet's skill. Great, therefore, was his surprise when Nixon answered him in the words of the old proverb, "Those who hide can find." From that time forth the King implicitly believed that he had the gift of prophecy, and ordered all his words to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... superiority in substance is given by his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life. . . . We have only to call to mind the Prologue to 'The Canterbury Tales.' The right comment upon it is Dryden's: 'It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.' And again: 'He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.' It is by a large, free, sound representation of things, that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and Chaucer's poetry has truth ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... laughed very heartily, and even seemed to enjoy the retaliation which had been exacted at his own expence; but lady Bullford looked very grave; and in all probability thought the lieutenant had carried his resentment too far, considering that her husband was valetudinary — but, according to the proverb, he that will play at bowls must expect to meet with rubbers. I have seen a tame bear, very diverting when properly managed, become a very dangerous wild beast when teized for the entertainment of the spectators. — ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... name—and the old proverb holds good even at the antipodes. My trampings are now ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... hath often witnessed such piteous scenes, and many fear she is now on the verge of similar calamities, which threaten to cloud her glory from the envy and admiration of foreign nations, making her a taunting proverb of reproach to her enemies, while she points a moral, and adorns a tale, for posterity. May those who govern her wide extended empire, so study the records of our former woes, and shape their political course with such single-hearted observance of the unerring laws of God, as to become, under his ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... But there is a medium to be observed between gluttony and absolute starvation, and "medio tutis-simus ibis," saith the proverb; and I do beg to tell those over cautious ladies and gentlemen, who seem to know no medium between the cloistered nun and the abandoned profligate, that Nature will prevail in their spite, or, as Obadiah wisely and truly said, "When lambs meet they will play." And now, reader, kind, courteous, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... age, Nor e'er was worth, nor e'er was beauty known His heart to captive, or his thought engage: Some feeble joyaunce, though his conscious mind Might female worth or beauty give to wear, Yet to the nobler sex he held confined The genuine graces of the soul sincere, And well could show with saw or proverb quaint All semblance woman's soul, and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... for conquest and come to the school. Talk is cheap, according to a proverb more common than elegant; but it is sinful to waste the cheapest of things. While you dress, you will meditate upon the sensation which it is your intention to make in the ring, and upon the humiliation which you will heap upon your riding master by showing ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... you,' brings forth to yourself. 'Lay' is here used as in 'a hen lays eggs'; such an application to this proverb is a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... nearly as may be arranged; but if large numbers are engaged, or in other words, when the contest becomes war, the rule is reversed and each party is expected to take every possible advantage of his adversary, even to the extent of stratagem or deception. In fact, it has passed into a proverb that "all things are fair in love ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... proverb, "Cross-writing makes cross-reading." "The old proverb?" you say inquiringly. "How old?" Well, not so very ancient, I must confess. In fact, I invented it while writing this paragraph. Still, you know, "old" is a comparative term. I ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... that all his training had tended, but notwithstanding his robust physique, and the indicia of great strength with which nature had endowed him, he was a weakling in the field of Venus. He came within the category of a Latin proverb with which Ninon was familiar: "Pilosus aut fortis, aut libidinosus." (A hairy man is either strong or sensual.) Wherefore, one day when Ninon was enjoying his society, she looked at him narrowly and exclaimed: "Ah, Monseigneur, il faut que vous soyez bien fort!" (Ah, Monseigneur, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... the good God will arise to work miracles again, such things might be; but how can we look for Him to do so? What manner of man is the Dauphin of France that he should look for divine deliverance? 'God helps those who help themselves,' so says the proverb; but what of those who lie sunk in lethargy or despair, and seek to drown thought or care in folly and riotous living—heedless of the ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... many Kaffirs, by the lash, with the crocodiles, or what-not, then a white man or two makes less deeference. I acknowledge there were too many on board that sheep; but what was one to do? You have your Engleesh proverb about the dead men and the stories; it was necessary to make clin swip. You ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... me in that and in some other things also,' M. de Rosny answered, 'it would be very well for France.' Though he spoke courteously, he threw so much weight and independence into his words that I thought of the old proverb, 'A good master, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... deeps, to the waters of which man may in nowise say, thus far shall ye come and no farther. The community I now speak of, the white population of Darien, should be a religious one, to judge by the number of Churches it maintains. However, we know the old proverb, and, at that rate, it may not be so godly after all. Mr. —— and his brother have been called upon at various times to subscribe to them all; and I saw this morning a most fervent appeal, extremely ill-spelled, from a ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... treatment for idiocy (SIC!). Certainly Fortune favoured him, for, apart from the interesting malady of which he was cured in Switzerland (can there be a cure for idiocy?) his story proves the truth of the Russian proverb that 'happiness is the right of certain classes!' Judge for yourselves. Our subject was an infant in arms when he lost his father, an officer who died just as he was about to be court-martialled for ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... part of the whole book viewed from a rhetorical standpoint, that they attempt to rise above mere incidents and strive after literary form. Besides the regard in which anecdotes are held, it is considered a mark of education to insert in one's speech as often as possible a familiar saying, a proverb, a bon mot. These are largely used in the moral addresses (Khutbah) made in the mosque or elsewhere, addresses which take on also the form of rhymed prose. A famous collection of such sayings is attributed to 'Ali, the fourth successor of Muhammad. In these the whole ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... courtesy and tact, tolerance and humility, even under the greatest provocation. The man who bet 400 Zuz that he would break Hillel's patience by silly and far-fetched questions lost his own temper at the consideration with which he was treated. And so the proverb became current, "Patience is worth 400 Zuz." And other tales are told of Hillel's considerate dealing with heathens who wished to embrace Judaism, in contrast to the harsh treatment meted out to them by his ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... preconceived notions of a mountaineer, as he is timid, peaceful, and no brawler; qualities which are all the more remarkable from contrasting so strongly with those of his neighbours to the east and west: of whom the Ghorkas are brave and warlike to a proverb, and the Bhotanese quarrelsome, cowardly, and cruel. A group of Lepchas is exceedingly picturesque. They are of short stature—four feet eight inches to five feet—rather broad in the chest, and with muscular arms, but small ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... and the Lip." The proverb that many things fall out between the cup and the lip, is a literal version of one in Latin. Multo inter pocula ac libra cadunt. The origin of which was as follows:—A king of Thrace had planted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... to spare him from his duties. The difference was one of judgment and, perhaps, of temperament. From Higgins's character it is likely that, had he commanded the naval forces, the Louisiana would either have done more work or come to a different end. As the old proverb says, "He would have made a spoon ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... proverb, Tell me who you are with, and I will tell you what you are; and we ourselves say, Birds of a feather flock together. It is generally allowed that proverbs are built upon experience, and contain great truths; and though at this time very young, he contracted no acquaintance, and kept no company, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... of populations almost invariably hostile. From the mouth of the river, which he had just descended in his badly built and dilapidated vessel, Orellana succeeded in reaching the Island of Cubagua, whence he set sail for Spain. If the proverb "He who comes from a distance tells many lies" were not of much earlier date, one might have thought it had been coined for Orellana. He invented the most preposterous fables as to the wealth of the countries ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... trials in this Jigoku yashiki (Hell mansion). There was her ladyship to take into account. Says the proverb of the Nipponese—"dabble in vermilion, and one is stained red." Contact with Shu[u]zen had developed all the harsher traits in this stern samurai dame. She despised the former character of her husband, and now was mad with jealousy at his unrestrained lechery. However there was some consolation ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... I warrant you it will be worser and worser before long; so I must e'en go home soon, and look after the corn and the wheat, or else old father will bring his pigs to a fine market, as the old proverb goes. ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... which Mrs. Freke assures her is becoming. At one time she was persuaded to go to a public ball with her arms as bare as Juno's, and her feet as naked as Mad. Tallien's. At another time Miss Moreton (who unfortunately has never heard the Greek proverb, that half is better than the whole,) was persuaded by Mrs. Freke to lay aside, her half boots, and to equip herself in men's whole boots; and thus she rode about the country, to the amazement of all the world. These are trifles; but women who love to set the world ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... all people, Sarah, quote that tinkling, superficial trash of a proverb, so palpably French, when the true reason why a man is not a hero to his lackey is only because he is seen with a lackey's eyes, —the sight of a low, convention-ridden, narrow, uneducated mind, unable to take a broad enough ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... any of them sit next to you when we were playing games last night," she declared, "and they were quite rude, and left you out altogether in the proverb questions. I think it is very cool of them to ask you. As for Muriel, I wonder she can bear to look at the lovely poppies you painted in her book, when she treats you ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... God for wrecks; and if they did not actually lure vessels to destruction on their cruel coasts, which it may be feared they did sometimes, they at least did nothing to avert the disasters which, to their mind, were sent by a merciful providence. There was even a proverb that it was unlucky to rescue a drowning man—widespread, for Scott mentions it in the "Pirate"; the bad luck which these coast-folk had in view being the fact that a rescued personage could claim his property that ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... the tuneful muses' hapless train, Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main! Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff, That never gives—tho' humbly takes enough; The little fate allows, they share as soon, Unlike sage proverb'd wisdom's hard-wrung boon. The world were blest did bliss on them depend, Ah, that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!" Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son Who life and wisdom at one race begun, Who feel by reason and who give by rule, (Instinct's a brute, and ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... fatherland. First the Recollets, then the Jesuits, came into spiritual possession; and later on, episcopal rule succeeded to the influence of Loyola's disciples. The relative estimation in which these various orders of the Church were held being illustrated by a Canadian proverb: "Pour faire un Recollet, il faut une hachette, pour un Pretre un ciseau, mais pour un ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... as little pleased with their taste in trifles. Cr'ebillon is entirely out of fashion, and Marivaux a proverb: marivauder and marivaudage are established terms for being prolix and tiresome. I thought that we were fallen, but they ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... "protract their causes many years, persuading them their title is good, till their patrimonies be consumed, and that they have spent more in seeking than the thing is worth, or they shall get by the recovery." So that he that goes to law, as the proverb is, [516]holds a wolf by the ears, or as a sheep in a storm runs for shelter to a brier, if he prosecute his cause he is consumed, if he surcease his suit he loseth all; [517]what difference? They had wont heretofore, saith Austin, to end matters, per communes arbitros; and so in Switzerland (we ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... taken by surprise by the swift vigour of the Imperial government. A considerable literature of military forecasts, beginning as early as 1906 with Rudolf Martin, the author not merely of a brilliant book of anticipations, but of a proverb, "The future of Germany lies in the air," had, however, partially prepared the German imagination for ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... darky as an inferior being," Charley had confided to Walter in a whisper. "There are rumors that there is more than one negro slave in the heart of the Everglades. The Seminoles have a proverb, 'White man, Indian, dog, nigger,' which expresses their opinion of the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the bone will come out in the flesh." "Like father like son." "The sins of the parents shall be visited on the children." So runs many a proverb: so confirms the unerring decree of a just God, who would not be a just God did He allow Himself to break His own righteous laws for the government of the universe; did He falsify the requirements of His own holy ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... strive a medium to procure; Redundance never can success insure: This proverb will in all things be found true, That good itself, should have its limits due. Christian! avoid revenge and strife, For anger tends to embitter life: And he who readily forgives his foe, Ev'n here on earth true happiness ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... on the printer, and place HIM in the same category. On the sins of printers, and the unnatural neglect which has often shortened the lives of their typographical progeny, it is not for me to dilate. There is an old proverb, "'Tis an ill bird that befouls its own nest"; a curious chapter thereupon, with many modern examples, might nevertheless be written. This I will leave, and will now only place on record some of the cruelties perpetrated upon books by the ignorance ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... tree illustrates the African proverb that though you can count the apples on one tree, you can never count the trees in one apple.—January Popular ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... listlessly. "Are these suns more serene than ours, or the soil more fertile? Yet in our own Italy, saith the proverb, 'he who sows land, reaps more care than corn.' It were different," continued the father after a pause, and in a more irresolute tone, "if I had some independence, however small, to count on—nay, if among all my tribe of dainty relatives there were ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... lift the sand which sprinkled the hard-trodden ground with thick powder of gold dust, and whirl it westward against the fire of sunset, red as a blowing spray of blood. "It is a sign of trouble when the sand of the desert turns to blood," muttered Fafann to her mistress, quoting a Bedouin proverb. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... pass an opinion, Sir Walter. But the reverend gentleman, no doubt, understands such things. Only there's the Witch of Endor, if I may mention the creature, she fetched up more than she bargained for. And I remember a proverb as I heard in India, from a Hindoo. I've forgot the lingo now, but I remember the sense. They Hindoos say that if you knock long enough at a closed door, the devil will open it—excuse my mentioning such a thing; but Hindoos ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... All others knowing any reason why he should not be married should also have the opportunity to appear and state their reasons for opposing the granting of the application. I am inclined to believe that this would put a stop to these hasty marriages which have given rise to that beautiful proverb, Married in Camden, Repent at ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... money bag!" cried Esther, a courtesan once more. She took a small sheet of notepaper and wrote all over it, as close as it could go, Scribe's famous phrase, which has become a proverb, "Prenez mon ours." ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... they only seemed to make the room darker, for a couple of the Malays had been busy stopping up a small hole or two near the closed window. Now and then some busy fly or crawling beetle took his attention, or a nimble lizard in chase of an insect, and he thought of the native proverb, as he saw how patiently the lizard crept along after its intended victim, and waited its time until with unerring certainty it ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... bride Hebe; soon after the Graces dropped in, the most delightful personages in the world for a soiree, so useful and ready for anything. Afterwards came a few of the Muses, Thalia, Melpomene, and Terpsichore, famous for a charade or a proverb. Jupiter liked to be amused in the evening. Bacchus also came, but finding that the Gods had not yet left their wine, retired to pay them ...
— Ixion In Heaven • Benjamin Disraeli
... remained of Greek or Roman music. To guide these explorers, there was only a dim instinct that the ancients had declaimed dramatic verse with musical intonation. But, as the alchemists sought the philosopher's stone, and founded modern chemistry; as, according to an ancient proverb, they who search for silver find gold; so it happened that, from the pedantic and ill-directed attempts of this academy proceeded the system on which the modern Oratorio and Opera were based. What is noticeable in these experiments is, that a new ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... at home was not in the literal sense of the proverb. It turned out that he had been neighbouring to some purpose. Old Simpson could not move himself about indoors or attend to his work without, and Jim, who had not before this attached himself by regular employment, had by some freak of good-nature given ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... required to boot games on a PC. The derived noun 'neep-neeping' applies specifically to the long conversations about computers that tend to develop in the corners at most SF-convention parties. Fandom has a related proverb to the effect that "Hacking is ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... was he from continued exertion and loss of blood that but for the supporting wall I doubt that he even could have stood erect. But with the tenacity and indomitable courage of his kind he still faced his cruel and relentless foes—the personification of that ancient proverb of his tribe: "Leave to a Thark his head and one hand and he ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not owre again,' said the writer, 'ye must pay it, otherwise summary proceedings will be entered against ye. If ye have already paid it in the way ye say, it is only making good the proverb, that the 'simple man is ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... serious, Sadly, heartily, earnestly, Salle, room, Samite, silk stuff with gold or silver threads, Sangreal, Holy Grail, Sarps, girdles, Saw, proverb, Scathes, harms, hurts, icripture, writing, Search, probe wounds, Selar, canopy, Semblable, like, Semblant, semblance, Sendal, fine cloth, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... the Forecaster replied; "the proverb is right there, as well. A gray sky in the morning means that the air is filled with water drops which are large enough to reflect light of every color. While this is the same as the gray of evening, the processes that led to the forming of these drops is quite different. In the day the dust is ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... granted by him to the poor of Bodmin, for gathering for fire-boot and house-boot such boughs and branches of such trees in his contiguous wood of Dunmere, as they could reach with a hook and a crook without further damage to the trees. From whence arose the Cornish proverb, they will have it by hook or by crook."—Hitchins and Drewe, Hist. Cornwall, p. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... of an army apart from that of its commander. If, in strategy wholly, and in tactics in great part, success emanates from a single brain, the morale of the troops is not less dependent on the influence of one man. "Better an army of stags," runs the old proverb, "led by a lion, than an army of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... property of one toman, can manage one of an hundred thousand," says an Indian proverb; and I, for my part, will enlarge upon this Asiatic adage and declare, that he who can govern one woman can govern a nation, and indeed there is very much similarity between these two governments. Must not the policy of husbands be very nearly the same as the policy of kings? Do not we see ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... noon now, and fifty or more boys were trooping out of school. I carefully scanned the throng. The old proverb has it that it is a wise child who knows its own father; but it is not so difficult for a father to know his own children. The moment I put my eyes on Sarah's son, I knew him; he was the very image of me; I could have picked ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott
... he born, a pleasant city, Famous for oranges and women,—he Who has not seen it will be much to pity, So says the proverb[24]—and I quite agree; Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty, Cadiz perhaps—but that you soon may see;— Don Juan's parents lived beside the river, A noble stream, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... exchanged a stinging gout for a mere rheumatism finds himself entirely free from pain. No, the serfs of the Middle Ages were in no sense happy. Stifled moans of misery, a sense of their unutterable agonies, steal up from proverb and by-corners of history—we feel that they were more miserable than jail prisoners at the present day—for then, as now, man groaned at being an inferior, and he had much more than that to groan over in those days of strifes and dirt. And yet every one of those serfs was ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... she certainly did write a good deal of poor stuff: it was all in a sense poor, but books and books, poor soul, she had to write. It was in a sense poor because it was mostly ambitious stuff, and, as the proverb says, "You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren." She was driven to fly, and gave her little wings too much to do, and her flights were apt to be mere little weak flutterings over the surface of the ground. A wren, and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... would come next day to visit us, and was to bring abundance of venison and other things along with him. Next day Donnacona came to Stadacona with a great number of men, for what purpose we know not; but as the proverb says, "He who takes heed of all men may hap to escape from some." Indeed we had great cause to look about us, being much diminished in numbers, and those who remained being still very weak; insomuch that we were under the necessity to leave one of our ships at the port of St Croix. Our captain ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... own gratification in procuring honey and in regulating its household, and as, according to the old proverb, what is one man's meat is another's poison, it sometimes carries honey to its cell, which is prejudicial to us. Dr. Barton in the fifth volume, of the "American Philosophical Transactions," speaks of several plants ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... didn't make a very hearty meal. After that the weather began to get bad, and continued getting bad for a long time. Then for some days, as sure as I went down below for a meal I did violence to the sentiment of the old proverb "wilful waste makes woeful want." However, in a few days I recovered sufficiently to withstand the noxious influences of the saloon long enough to satisfy my hunger. We had bad weather, more or less the whole way ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... useful in that service. But the regiments of the line supplied some chosen men, whose officers were also all picked men, and who formed a select band of about two thousand, under the orders of Lafayette. The mutual attachment of that corps and its head had become even a proverb in America. As a traveller brings from distant countries presents to his family and friends, he had brought from France the value of a large sum of money in ornaments for the soldiers, swords for the officers and under officers, and banners[3] for the battalions. This troop ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... arrived at a scant forty and looking a neglected fifty, short-sighted, stoop-shouldered and absent-minded to a proverb, he cast a last fond look at the parcel containing his translation of the Bacchic epic and climbed the stairs to his bachelor bedroom, took off his shabby garments, and stretched himself out in the illiterate sleep of a ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... granted, that to "compass" does not mean to accomplish; but rather to "take in hand, to go about to effect." There is therefore no form of words here forbidding to "kill the king." The phrase, to "imagine," does not appear less startling. What is, to a proverb, more ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... jammed and fill the river with a solid mass. As the great sticks come dashing along, turning porpoise-like somersets or leaping up twice their length in the air, he must be everywhere, livelier than a monkey in a mimosa, a wonder of acrobatic agility in biggest boots. He made the proverb, "As easy as falling off ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... his nose into the basin. Susan was willing that the pig should have some share of the bread and milk, but as she ate with a spoon and he with his large mouth, she soon found that he was likely to have more than his share; and she said to him, "Take a poon, pig." The saying became a proverb in the village, and Susan's little companions quoted it when any one claimed more than his share of anything good. Barbara, who was then not Miss Barbara, but plain Bab, and who played with all the poor children in the village, was often reproved by Susan's proverb. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... since Madame had engaged M. Vandeloup and his friend, but as yet the Devil's Lead had not been found. Madame, however, was strong in her belief that it would soon be discovered, for her luck—the luck of Madame Midas—was getting quite a proverb in Ballarat. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... wears a crown, says the proverb, and it was true in the case of Servius, for he could never forget that the people had not voted in his favor. For this reason he divided among them the lands that he had taken from the enemies he had defeated, ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... think the old proverb isn't as true of good words as of mischief,—that a dog who will fetch a bone will carry a bone?" said Sylvie, laughing with the same impulse by which clear drops stood suddenly in her eyes, and a quick rosiness came into her ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney |
