"Proverb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... momentous health-problem with which we have to deal,— to secure the proper physical advantages of civilization for American women. Without this there can be no lasting progress. The Sandwich Island proverb says,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... folkways, the mores, the conventions, and the social ritual (Sittlichkeit). It assumes also participation, to a certain extent at least, in the memories, the tradition, and the culture of a new social group. The proverb "In Rome do as the Romans do" is a basic principle of naturalization. The cosmopolitan is the person who readily accommodates himself to the codes of conduct ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... ye,' retorted Lammie. 'Dinna ye ken a proverb whan ye hear 't? De'il hae ye! ye're as sharpset as a missionar'. I was only gaun to say ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... fortunate than rich," says an old proverb, and the correctness of this saying was fully exemplified in the life of Don Rodrigo de Cespedes. Indeed, his whole existence had been a series of mischances and unfortunate results; and he appeared especially reserved as a proper subject on whom the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... napping again, and so they erected a kind of a staging near to the camp, on which the valuable loads of meat and furs were safely placed. Memotas had to have another drive or two at them, and so he ironically congratulated them on their late precautions. Sam said it looked like the old proverb of locking your stable after the horse was stolen. Alec's more charitable remark was, "It is best to be made wise by the loss, and then strive to save ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... he says 'flow all evil examples of spiritual and temporal iniquity into the world, as from a sea of wickedness. Whoever mourns to see it, is called by the Romans a 'good Christian,' or in their language, a fool. It was a proverb among them that one ought to wheedle the gold out of the German simpletons as much as one could.' If the German princes and nobles did not 'make short work of them in good earnest,' Germany would either be devastated or would have ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... of these times ought to put no faith in the bulletins, despatches, notes, and proclamations which have emanated from Bonaparte, or passed through his hands. For my part, I believe that the proverb, "As great a liar as a bulletin," has as much truth in it as the axiom, two and two ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... who came to consult the oracle. After these preliminaries, he descended into the cave by a narrow passage. This place could be entered only in the night. The person returned from the cave by the same narrow passage, bat walking backwards. He appeared melancholy and defected; and hence the proverb which was applied to a person low- spirited and gloomy, "He has been consulting ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... something by slow degrees, and this might be set down to be the truth of that old proverb to the effect that the race is not always to the swift. Perhaps, if he ever had another boat built to order, he would not sacrifice safety and comfort to the mad desire to make ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... Grate, she was most exemplary Devout in the Cloister, doing more Penance, and imposing a more rigid Severity and Task on her self, than was requir'd, giving such rare Examples to all the Nuns that were less Devout, that her Life was a Proverb, and a President, and when they would express a very Holy Woman indeed, they would say, 'She ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... and turned away. She hesitated at the corner of the street, gazing up and down. To start on a search for Lionel appeared to be as hopeful a project as that search renowned in proverb—the looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. The custom in Deerham was not to light the lamps on a moonlight night, so the street, as Lucy glanced on either side, lay white and quiet; no glare to disturb its peace, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... tell you," said Estella. "First, notwithstanding the proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set your mind at rest that these people never will—never would, in hundred years—impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so busy and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... give you a new proverb, one I have found useful at times. Put not thy finger into thy neighbor's pie, lest it get stuck ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... our intentions from them, but to keep the pair apart from all brother-and-sister communism, until such time as each heart begins to have its natural craving for a congenial spirit,—when, in sooth, it looks for others than brothers and sisters to cling to. It is a very old, perhaps a very vulgar proverb, that "familiarity breeds contempt;" and we assuredly think, that the constant fireside association of young folks, trained up together in bread-and-butter ease, is more apt to generate calm friendship than ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... was not good for them. I quit then, after giving him my opinion of him and of the chances of his shop. I do not know where he may be now, but wherever he is, I will warrant that my prediction came true. There is in Danish an old proverb, "Falsk slaar sin egen Herre paa Hals," which is to say that chickens come home to roost, and that right in the end does prevail over might. The Lord Chief Justice over all is not to be tricked. If the labor men will only remember that, and devote, ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... he can do till he is tried. That is a proverb (at least if it is not it ought to be) which embraces much deep truth. The way in which David Boone set personal danger at defiance, and seemed to regard suffocation by smoke or roasting by fire as terminations of life worth courting, was astounding, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... checkerberries with an unusual ardor. She did understand; she would not be Mademoiselle de Trop any longer. Kind soul! so unlike young women in general, who won't step aside gracefully, when they should! Further I can vouch, that she neither hemmed, nor made eyes, nor yet repeated the well-worn proverb, "Two's company, but three's none." No, she gathered berries and sang snatches of songs as though she were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... was so flattering to Guy, the General made a fresh effort to appease his daughter, but with no better success than before. Children and fools, says the proverb, speak the truth; and the truth which was spoken in this instance was not very agreeable to the visitor at whom it was flung. But Guy looked on with a smile, and nothing in his face gave any sign of the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... says a Scottish proverb, is no bigger than a midge's wing. [Footnote: i.e. Gnat's wing] In this matter of quarrel, neither the young man nor the older knight had afforded each other any just cause of offence. De Walton was a strict observer of military discipline, in which he had been educated from his extreme youth, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... shall still continue to furnish you with hints on all proper occasions, which is all your genius requires. I think, by the way, you cannot in honour have any more to do with Morphew and Lillie, who have gone beyond the ordinary pitch of assurance, and transgressed the very letter of the proverb, by endeavouring to cheat you of your Christian and surname too. Wishing you, Sir, long to live for our instruction and diversion, and to the defeating of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... not sing," is a curious proverb; and if it is meant to express the absence of popular poetry in that country, it would be easy to convict it of falsehood by a list of poets whose works, though unknown to fame beyond the limits of their own country, are cherished, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... I sat up with him last night; and, poor man! it is impossible to tell thee, how easy and safe he thought himself in my company, for the first part of the night: A drowning man will catch at a straw, the proverb well says: and a straw was I, with respect to any real help I could give him. He often awaked in terrors; and once calling out for me, Dear Belford, said he, Where are you!—Oh! There you are!—Give me your friendly ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... chase is a long one, says the proverb, and night came with the craft still miles away, but the sky was brilliantly clear, and the moon shone forth, showing the white-sailed schooner in a strangely weird fashion far across ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... an old proverb. If that is true we should be happy," remarked one of the tourists as we gathered on the deck gazing at an animated scene. "Look! There are thirty boats in the same ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... writer, speaking of this in 1682, adds, "A stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all signs of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses," referring to the old custom of a bunch of green as the sign of an inn, which is illustrated by the proverb, "Good wine needs no bush." I have an old etching of a river-side inn, in which the sign is a ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... fabulous stories? says Balbus. Is not the temple, built by Posthumius in honor of Castor and Pollux, to be seen in the Forum? Is not the decree of the senate concerning Vatienus still subsisting? As to the affair of Sagra, it is a common proverb among the Greeks; when they would affirm anything strongly, they say "It is as certain as what passed at Sagra." Ought not such authorities to move you? You oppose me, replies Cotta, with stories, but I ask reasons ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... found that all his efforts for internal reform must be in a comparative sense futile so long as piracy, that curse of Borneo, was permitted to ravage unchecked. "It is in a Malay's nature," says the Dutch proverb, "to rove on the seas in his prahu, as it is in that of the Arab to wander with his steed on the sands of the desert." No person who has not investigated the subject can appreciate how wide-spread and deep-seated this plague ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... opportunities common to the whole human race. Read the story of any successful man and mark its moral, told thousands of years ago by Solomon: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings." This proverb is well illustrated by the career of the industrious Franklin, for he stood before five kings and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... land, so that during the first sixteen days I had only one view of the Cordillera behind Lima. These mountains, seen in stages, one above the other, through openings in the clouds, had a very grand appearance. It is almost become a proverb, that rain never falls in the lower part of Peru. Yet this can hardly be considered correct; for during almost every day of our visit there was a thick drizzling mist, which was sufficient to make the streets muddy and ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... 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 Jesuit, il ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... nonsense. And if he did talk nonsense, it was accepted as words of wisdom because of the important and high position which he occupied. Only in the morning, just at the time Nekhludoff came to see him, he was like a reasonable being, could understand what was said to him, and fulfil more or less aptly a proverb he was fond of repeating: "He's tipsy, but he's wise, so he's pleasant in ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... Tom. "You weigh the butter, I will weigh the sugar, Rosy the treacle, and Margaret measure the vinegar. It is such an advantage to have so many helpers; we get the work done so quickly. There is a proverb which says 'Many hands make light work.' It ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of lovely things about tears. Notwithstanding that fact, there is an old German proverb: "Nothing dries sooner than a tear," which isn't so bad. And Byron, you know, said that the busy have no time for tears. Which, one must acknowledge, is quite true when one thinks how everybody is up and hustling these days. They're ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... not wish to know. All that is a matter between yourself and your conscience. You have the right to explain your scruples to the jury. You know the proverb: "The pen is a ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... merry companion," says the old English proverb, and Sir Bale felt in better spirits and temper than he had for many a day as he replaced the guineas in ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... antiquarian and linguist, he unites qualities precious for the due appreciation of Spain. Well-versed in the Castilian, he also displays a familiarity with the Cantabrian tongue—that strange and difficult Vascuense which the Evil One himself, according to a provincial proverb, spent seven years of fruitless labour in endeavouring to acquire. And he patters Romani, the mysterious jargon of the gitanos, in a style no way inferior—so far as we can discover—to Bible Borrow himself. That gentleman, by the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... spite of his learning he made many enemies by his arrogance; and his restless and ambitious spirit carried him into enterprises which were outside the proper sphere of his philosophy. In this he followed the example of many other luckless authors, to whom the advice of the homely proverb would have been valuable which states that "a shoemaker ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil on the whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... to other parts of the island and share the nuptial-banquet. Everywhere great quantities of macaroni or of fried fish are prepared, and the guests eat and drink to repletion. Even the most miserly are liberal on this occasion, and a proverb advises one to attend the weddings of the avaricious: A li nozzi di l'avaru trovaticci. The bride and groom, as can be easily imagined, have their heads full of other things than macaroni and fried fish. At Borghetto baked beans and pease are served not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... old proverb was my first warning. I caught two of the youths exchanging glances under raised eyebrows. Yet their stout, easy-going mentor had given me such a reassuring glance of side-long humor, as between man of the world and man of the world, that it was difficult ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... that it amounted to the old proverb, "All's fair in love and war". And, putting aside a few moral prejudices, one can easily enough absolve him.—The fact is, I had long ago surmised that his motives in taking to such a career had more reference to this world than the ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... be angry with them!" Hsiao Hung observed. "The proverb says: 'You may erect a shed a thousand li long, but there is no entertainment from which the guests will not disperse!' And who is it that will tarry here for a whole lifetime? In another three years or five years every single one of us will have gone her own way; and who will, when that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... time at all for him to learn to love her. He stared at her a moment. He bent to kiss her and then stopped. He might awaken her. It is always best for the children of the very poor to sleep. He who sleeps dines, runs the Spanish proverb. He turned and kissed the little ragged stockings instead, and then he went out. He was going to play—was it ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... keeping him alive. This was a species of cleverness which his father should have practiced; but this Machiavellian scheme was unnecessary in his case. Young Philippe Belvidero, his son, grew up a Spaniard as conscientiously religious as his father was impious, on the principle of the proverb: "A ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... that, in spite of all my watchfulness in guarding her, it is probable my Lady would have given me the slip, had I not had quite as acute a person as herself as my ally: for, as the proverb says that 'the best way to catch one thief is to set another after him,' so the best way to get the better of a woman is to engage one of her own artful sex to guard her. One would have thought that, followed as she was, all her ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it proper with you, ye kine that you do not welcome me? I am difficult of being attained. Why then do you not accept me? It seems, ye creatures of excellent vows, that the popular proverb is true, viz., that it is certain that when one come to another of one's own accord and without being sought, one meets with disregard. The Gods, the Danavas, the Gandharvas, the Pisachas, the Uragas, the Rakshasas and human beings succeed in obtaining me only after undergoing the severest ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... commonly supposed. Some start in life without any leading object at all; some with a low one; and some aim high:—and just in proportion to the elevation at which they aim, will be their progress and success. It is an old proverb that he who aims at the sun, will not reach it, to be sure, but his arrow will fly higher than if he aims at an object on a level with himself. Exactly so is it, in the formation of character, except in one point. To ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... with all his good-natured affability, he was not one to permit it; besides, his position was changed, and he could not help feeling that it was. "Necessity makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows," says the very true proverb; and what might have been borne yesterday would not be ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... an old proverb that tells us, "Idleness is the devil's pillow"; and well may it be so esteemed, for no head ever rested long upon it, but the lips of the evil spirit were at its ear, breathing falsehood and temptation. The industrious man is seldom found guilty of a crime; for he has no time to listen to the enticings ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... clothes and dances before Samuel and David, the only self-possessed spectators of the bacchantic company, till he falls down; and he lies naked as he is a whole day and a whole night upon the ground—whence the proverb, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" But that David when he fled, fled in earnest and went in the direction of Judah, instead of amusing himself by going first towards the north, is perfectly evident, as much so as ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... wept. It was like her friend, she thought, to risk his reputation for some poor lost wanderer of the streets. Another man might have done it for the girl he loved or for the woman he had married. But with Jeff it would be for one of the least of these. There flashed into her mind an old Indian proverb she had read. "I met a hundred men on the road to Delhi, and they were all my brothers." Yes! None were too deep sunk in the mire to be brothers and sisters to ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... your sex," said Paul. "Down in Mexico, when I was there on the Brighton job, I heard a Spanish proverb: 'If a pretty woman smiles, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... helmet to the circular neck of the breast-plate. Previously, however, a woollen night-cap was drawn over the poor man's head, well down on his ears, and Rooney looked—as indeed he afterwards admitted that he felt—as if he were going to be hanged. He thought, however, of the proverb, that a man who is born to be drowned never can be hanged, and ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... seek to promote it. Hence, they have had this maxim, viz., "The end sanctifies the means." But this maxim is not sound. The contrary principle is correct. It is sometimes expressed by this saying: "We must not do evil that good may come;" which is a much safer proverb to be ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... collection of beasts, birds, &c. most of which are inhabited by the souls of some naughty masters or misses, who died in the neighbourhood, and it is possible were not unknown to your little companions. It was a proverb among the ancient Bramins, that Example is more powerful than precept, and it is the common language of mankind to this day, I understand what I hear, but I believe what I see. It would not be amiss therefore, if you were to accompany the young gentlemen and ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... devout women of Saint Germain d' Auxerre, when passing at night beneath the brightly illuminated windows of Bourbon, had been scandalized to hear the same voices which had intoned vespers for them during the day carolling, to the clinking of glasses, the bacchic proverb of Benedict XII., that pope who had added a third crown to ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the man who, after the murder of Nobunaga, marched in furious haste upon his assassin and quenched the ambition of the latter in death. The brief career of the murderer has given rise to a Japanese proverb, "Akechi ruled three days." The avenger of the slain regent was now at the head of affairs. The mikado himself dared not oppose him, for the military power of the empire lay within his grasp. There was ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... member of this fortuitous society contemplates the skies, and departs, skipping to avoid the mud,—because he is in a hurry, or because he sees other citizens walking along in spite of wind and slush, or because, the archway being damp and mortally catarrhal, the bed's edge, as the proverb says, is better than the sheets. Each one has his motive. No one is left but the prudent pedestrian, the man who, before he sets forth, makes sure of a scrap of blue ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... know the tones—there's a shrillness in them not to be mistaken. Farewell! I must depart; you have heard the proverb, 'those who are bound must obey.' Young Jack, I presume, is squalling, and I must either nurse him, rock the cradle, or sing comic tunes for him, though heaven knows with what a disastrous heart I often sing, 'Begone dull ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... on every side. Many a man has fallen at the very point where he thought he was safest. The meekness of Moses has passed into a proverb. Yet he lost the Promised Land, because he allowed the children of Israel to provoke him, and "he spake unadvisedly with his lips." Peter was the most zealous and defiant of the disciples, bold and outspoken; yet he degenerated for a short time into a lying, swearing, sneaking ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... second lie: I that, at home, used to be a proverb for blunt truth-telling. They say that "facilis descensus Averni." I do not agree with them. I have not found it easy. To me it has seemed a very steep and precipitous road, set with sharp flints that cut the feet, and make ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... called "The Great State." He said the doctor should no longer be a mere plasterer of paltry maladies, but should be, in his own words, "the health adviser of the community." The same can be expressed with even more point and simplicity in the proverb that prevention is better than cure. Commenting on this, I said that it amounted to treating all people who are well as if they were ill. This the writer admitted to be true, only adding that everyone is ill. To which I rejoin that if everyone is ill the health adviser is ill too, ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... postscript. That had been twenty years ago, when he'd been eighty and she'd been seventy. He supposed she'd expect him to take up his old relationship with her again. It probably wouldn't last any longer than it had, the other time; he recalled a Fourth Level proverb about the leopard and his spots. It certainly wouldn't be ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... trust in it. "Nothing walks with aimless feet." Our life is no lottery. We may make foolish experiments with it, but we do so at our own risk. It is no plaything of chance, it is a stern responsibility which is determined by law that brooks no interference and excuses no indifference. The proverb tells us that "our lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing is of the Lord." And just as the dark forces that sweep through our life are not necessarily hostile forces but form part of the order of the world, so things that we regard ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... once, "What says the proverb, 'Better to court favor in the kitchen than in the drawing-room'?" The Master replied, "Nay, better say, He who has sinned against Heaven has none other to whom prayer ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... half-hearted, "Do you think so, really?" voiced the attitude of nearly all present. The Scorpas were, to use the old Roman proverb, "sleeping dogs best let alone," and the Sanseveros, though not as rich, were none the less too great a family to ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... if we got into scrapes, which one or the other of us was not unfrequently doing, we were very certain that no one could extricate us as well as he could. I don't mean to say that he forgot the proverb, "Spare the rod, spoil the child;" or that we were such pieces of perfection that we did not deserve punishment; but we had sense enough to see that he punished us for our good: he did it calmly, never angrily, and without any unnecessarily severe remark, and we certainly did ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... hog or dog on't; And look'd, since he has got his wish, As if he had thrown down a dish, Yet this I dare foretell you from it, He'll soon return to his own vomit. WHIG. Besides, this horrid plot was found By Neynoe, after he was drown'd. TORY. Why then the proverb is not right, Since you can teach dead dogs to bite. WHIG. I proved my proposition full: But Jacobites are strangely dull. Now, let me tell you plainly, sir, Our witness is a real cur, A dog of spirit for his years; Has ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... "all-thing hath the being by the love of God." Its oppositions are no part of its realness; and therefore they can be overcome. Is there not here, then, abundance of practical work for you to do; work which is the direct outcome of your mystical experience? Are there not here, as the French proverb has it, plenty of cats for you to comb? And isn't it just here, in the new foothold it gives you, the new clear vision and certitude—in its noble, serious, and invulnerable faith— that mysticism is "useful"; even for the most scientific of social reformers, the most belligerent of politicians, ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... the fool thinks.' The proverb is somewhat stale. I marvel thou findest not its application ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... an appetite for talk with you, I fear I won't eat a thing. If I'd known you were to be here I'd have taken the forethought to eat a gored ox, or something—what is the proverb, 'better a dinner of stalled ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... a clay oven on the patio; rice and DHAL were quickly served on large banana leaves. My host courteously refused my aid in all cooking chores. "The guest is God," a Hindu proverb, has commanded devout observance from time immemorial. In my later world travels, I was charmed to see that a similar respect for visitors is manifested in rural sections of many countries. The city ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... begun she came often. She tried to persuade her husband to go, and told him how sweetly the boys' voices sounded, led by Master Swift's fine bass, which he pitched from a key which he knocked upon his desk. But Master Lake had a proverb to excuse him. "The nearer the church, the further from GOD." Not that he pretended to maintain ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... mountains that we never climb but once,'" he said. "We three, meeting in Paris, can prove the truth of that proverb." ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... gentleman[180] ask Mr. Levett a variety of questions concerning him, when he was sitting by, he broke out, 'Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both.' 'A man, (said he,) should not talk of himself, nor much of any particular person. He should take care not to be made a proverb; and, therefore, should avoid having any one topick of which people can say, "We shall hear him upon it."' There was a Dr. Oldfield, who was always talking of the Duke of Marlborough. He came into a coffee-house ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... so much an oyster which you've got to open with a sword, as the old proverb has it, but a wild beast. Yes, a wild beast: and you've got to fight him at first, fight him tooth and claw. When you've beaten him, ah! then ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that whoever the devil finds idle he will employ. And what but habitual idleness can hereditary wealth and titles produce? For man is so constituted that he can only attain a proper use ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... still in life, who can claim to have known them familiarly. Their letters, therefore, come to us like material things out of the hands of mighty shadows, long historical, and traditionary, and fit companions for the sages and warriors of a thousand years ago. In spite of the proverb, it is not in a single day, or in a very few years, that a man can be reckoned "as dead as Julius Caesar." We feel little interest in scraps from the pens of old gentlemen, ambassadors, governors, senators, heads of departments, even presidents though they were, who lived lives of praiseworthy ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... same analogies. Why do we not preserve a like attitude towards political and philosophical questions? Why this ridiculous mania for affirming that every thing has been said, which means that we know all about mental and moral science? Why is the proverb, THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN, applied exclusively ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... fell into her husband's arms, stone-white: but her hard brother, making no account whatever of all that show of feeling, only took the trouble quietly to address Henry Clements. "Misfortunes never come single, they say; it is no fault of mine if the proverb hits Mr. Henry Clements. I am sorry to have to tell you, sir, that the Austral Independent bank has stopped payment, and is not expected to refund to its depositors or shareholders one penny ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... enmity. If, therefore, the Sultan that is set over them be (which God the Most High forfend) weak or lack of policy and majesty, without doubt, this will be the cause of the ruin of the land. Quoth the proverb, 'A hundred years of the Sultan's tyranny, rather than one of the tyranny of the people, one over another.' When the people oppress one another, God setteth over them a tyrannical Sultan and a despotic King. Thus it is told in history that there was, one day, presented to El Hejjaj ben Yousuf[FN205] ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... {purphoros} had charge of the fire brought for sacrifices from the altar of Zeus Agetor at Sparta, and ordinarily his person would be regarded as sacred; hence the proverb {oude purphoros esothe}, used of ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... every year to bring away rich loads of eider-down. A long way down the side of this lofty rock was a cleft. Nobody could tell how far into the rock it went, and so inaccessible was it there that its owner had said that whoever liked might come and take eider-down from thence. It became quite a proverb to say, when anything couldn't be done, that it was just as impossible as taking eider-down from ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... Lady Rosamond could not but smile congratulation to the hair-cutter, who looked meekly elevated, while Tom whispered, "Proverb contradicted." ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me." "Well," said I, "I beg your pardon once more. I assure you that what I did was with the best intention." "Oh! pray make no further apology," said the individual, "I make no doubt that what you did was done kindly; but there's an old proverb, to the effect, 'that you should let sleeping dogs lie,'" he added with a smile. Then, getting up, and stretching himself with a yawn, he took up his book and said, "I have slept quite long enough, and ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... taverners in the city of London owning ale-stakes projecting or extending over the King's highway more than seven feet in length, at the utmost, should be fined forty pence, and compelled to remove the sign. Here is the origin, too, of the proverb, "good wine needs no bush." In the later development of the inn the signs lost their Bacchic character and became most elaborate, often being painted ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... coffers in a three years' war with America, has given a powerful superiority to France and Spain. She is not now a match for them. But if neither councils can prevail on her to think, nor sufferings awaken her to reason, she must e'en go on, till the honor of England becomes a proverb of contempt, and Europe dub her the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... The Romans had a proverb, "Litera scripta manet," which means "The written letter remains." The subtle wisdom of these words was no doubt well known to the men of the later Paleolithic Age before them, but evidently the gentleman in the engraving never heard of it. If he had kept this simple little rule of social ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... a little longer courtship. They are never caught all in a minute, unless they are quite indifferent as to who catches them. And even then—'marry in haste'—you know the proverb—nay, don't be angry," he added, as his brother turned abruptly away. "I was only jesting; and a happy fellow like you can afford to be laughed at by a miserable old ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... 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 says, with ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... a common proverb in the Land of the Gods (Japan) that "the frog in the well knows not the great ocean," and the Kioto frog had so often heard this scornful sneer from the maids who came to draw out water, with their long bamboo-handled buckets that ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... better to have a kingdom ruined in preserving it for God and the king by war, than to have it kept entire without war, to the profit of the devil and of his followers. He was also reported on another occasion to have reminded her of the Spanish proverb—that the head of one salmon is worth those of a hundred frogs. The hint, if it were really given, was certainly destined ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the work. With all these merits and demerits, the book is of much value, because an unsatisfactory manual is far better than none. It does not take the place of that revised edition of Nuttall, which is still the great desideratum, but we may use meanwhile an eminently ornithological proverb, and say that a Samuels in the hand is worth two ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... Conversation.—A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' mere study of books.—Chinese Proverb. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... partly to be explained by the fact that they often get bits of reasoning by rote, much as young boys learn their Euclid; and that they frequently seem to understand principles because they apply them in the right cases, just as we often quote a proverb appropriately without the slightest idea of its origin or meaning beyond that it is the right thing to say in a certain connection. As we ascend in the scale of education, there is more and more of this reasoning by rote, so that critical incompetence is more easily concealed and may ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Branche-d'Or?" said Morgan; "it is not much—only half what we gave you last time, but you know the proverb: 'The handsomest girl in the world can ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... fainted. The Governor knew enough. He summoned the young man and, being convinced of his guilt, had him put in prison, while awaiting further information. It is well said in a certain proverb: "Even while you are sitting in your house with the doors ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... answered Toto without hesitation; "and everything that falls from heaven is good," he added, quoting an ancient proverb. ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Rimini will be ablaze. He'll kill me? Yes: what then? That's nothing new, Except to me; I'll bear for custom's sake. More blood will follow; like the royal sun, I shall go down in purple. Fools for luck; The proverb holds like iron. I must run, Ere laughter smother me.—O, ho, ho, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... groups were against allowing the developing middle class and especially the merchants to gain too much freedom, and whatever freedom they in fact gained, came through extra-legal or illegal practices. A proverb of the time said "People hate their ruler as animals hate the net (of the hunter)". The basic laws of medieval times which had attempted to create stable social classes remained: down to the nineteenth century there were slaves, different classes of serfs or "commoners", and free ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... hardly believe my own ears! Well, 'Live and learn' is an old proverb. I thought I knew your character. This is ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... Chaka's armies went they conquered, till the country was swept of people for hundreds of miles in every direction. At length, after he had killed or been the cause of the violent death of more than a million human beings, in the year 1828 Chaka's own hour came; for, as the Zulu proverb says, 'the swimmer is at last borne away by the stream.' He was murdered by the princes of his house and his body servant Umbopo or Mopo. But as he lay dying beneath their spear thrusts, it is said that the great king prophesied of the coming of white men who should ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... his mind and all but whelmed his will. She had been with him, he knew it, in the night; she had left him only at daybreak. But then, in his state of collapse, he had been hardly conscious of her presence. Now to ask for her or to see her would stamp him coward, say what he might to her. The proverb, that the King's face gives grace, applied to her; and an overture on his side could mean but one thing, that he sought her grace. And that he would not do though the cold waters of death covered him more and more, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... would be about two hundred and fifty yards farther at an angle of something like forty degrees. Counting their orderlies and hangers-on we outnumbered that party by two to one; and "the fish starts stinking from the head" as the proverb says. With the head gone, the whole Kurdish firing-line would ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... twenty-two." The signatures of Messieurs Postel and Gannerac were obviously given to oblige in the way of business; the Cointets would act at need for Gannerac as Gannerac acted for the Cointets. It was a practical application of the well-known proverb, "Reach me the rhubarb and I will pass you the senna." Cointet Brothers, moreover, kept a standing account with Metivier; there was no need of a re-draft, and no re-draft was made. A returned bill between the two firms simply meant a debit or credit ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... of this cleanliness, which know no bounds, when it can command the labor of others? Which of the people who have become rich has not experienced in his own case, with what difficulty he carefully trained himself to this cleanliness, which only confirms the proverb, "Little white ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... unfeeling ground ridiculously with his tail, and will presently gasp his feeble life out. Take him up tenderly, ere it be too late, and cast him into his native Thames again——But stop: I believe there is a certain proverb about fish out of water, and that other profound naturalists have remarked on them before me. Now Harry Warrington had been floundering for ever so long a time past, and out of his proper element. As soon as he found it, health, strength, spirits, energy, returned to him, and with the tap ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be so bad, he should be so ready to rebel when fed with delicacies. But in justice to the sailor, it ought to be remembered that the daintiest food may be rendered disgusting by bad cookery, such as is the rule on board merchant ships. "God sends meat, but the devil sends cooks" is a proverb which originated on board ship, and no one who has ever served any time in a ship's forecastle would deny that it is abundantly justified. Besides which, even good food well cooked of one kind only, served many times in succession, becomes very trying, only the plainest foods, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... proverb says, and so the poet sings," returned Ellis, thoughtfully. "This seems to be my darkest hour. God grant it be ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... wear a stone, says the old proverb; and if you doubt it, go and look at some step where the rain has dripped from gutter or eave, and see what a nice little hollow is worn. The constant dropping of unsavoury words wears the mind too; and these remarks and banterings about Australia and its convict life in the early days ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... Good Mrs. Irons was old, fat, and ugly, and she knew it; and that knowledge made her natural jealousy the fiercer. He had learned, by long experience, the best tactique under fire: he became actually taciturn; or, if he spoke, his speech was laconic and enigmatical; sometimes throwing out a proverb, and sometimes a text; and sometimes when provoked past endurance, spouting mildly a little bit of ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... no paradox to say that "Utopia," which has by a conspiracy of accidents become a proverb for undisciplined fancifulness in social and political matters, is in reality a very unimaginative work. In that, next to the accident of its priority, lies the secret of its continuing interest. In some respects it is like one of those precious and delightful scrapbooks people ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... is even like that of the old swan. These lords of earth might slay thee in anger like those creatures of the feathery tribe slaying the old swan. Persons conversant with the Puranas recite a proverb, O Bhishma, as regards this occurrence, I shall, O Bharata, repeat it to thee fully. It is even this: O thou that supportest thyself on thy wings, though thy heart is affected (by the passions), thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 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 ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... all that glisters gold. A favourite proverb with the old English poets. Cf. Chaucer, ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... Tory's exceedingly brief "Non plus," which was contemporaneously used also by Olivier Mallard; J.Longis, "Nihil in charitate violentia"; Denys Janot, "Tout par amour, amour par tout, par tout amour, en tout bien"; the French rendering of a very old proverb in the mottoes of B.Aubri and D.Roce, "Al'aventure tout vient a point qui peut attendre"; J.Bignon, "Repos sans fin, sans fin repos"; the motto used conjointly by M.Fzandat and R.Granjon, "Ne la mort, ne le venin"; and the motto of ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... a very trite proverb, and a sadly worn truth, exemplified over and over again at all times and seasons, and in all places of the earth, that the course of true love never ran smooth; and alas! notwithstanding all the pleasant preparations being made for them, these two poor lovers ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... abused. Meat and drink, so easily provided, were always improvidently spent. Probably few buccaneer ships returned from a cruise with the hands on full allowance. The rule was "drunk and full, or dry and empty, to hell with bloody misers"—the proverb of the American merchant sailor of to-day. They knew no mean in anything. That which came easily might go lightly: there was more where ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... pleasantries in proof of what he advanced; and did not forget the Bagdad proverb, "That the table is not completely furnished, except there be four in company"; so concluded, that since they were but ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... thicket to prevent the game from escaping. To "beat about the bush" seems to be a mixture of two metaphors which are quite unlike in meaning. To "beat the bush" was the office of the beaters, who started the game for others, hence an old proverb, "I will not beat the bush that another may have the birds." To "go about the bush" would seem to have been used originally of a hesitating hound. The two expressions have coalesced to express the idea for which French ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... is a modern maxim which can be translated, "He who learns to read and write rides in a carriage and pair." In English there is a similar proverb, "Knowledge is power." It is an offer of a prospective bribe to the student, a promise of an ulterior reward which is more important than knowledge itself. Temptations, held before us as inducements to be good or to pursue uncongenial ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... 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 ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... retorted Mr. Wilkinson. "Ridiculous! That is certainly a fine ground on which to seek sympathy from me! I forget who it is has the proverb, 'Never pity a woman weeping or a cat in the dark.' And I am reminded of it when I look at you two. You and my fair cousin, when you have one another to talk to, are just about as much in need of sympathy as a tiger is of tea . . . Speaking of tea—" he ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... first Place I must observe, that there is a Set of merry Drolls, whom the common People of all Countries admire, and seem to love so well, that they could eat them, according to the old Proverb: I mean those circumforaneous Wits whom every Nation calls by the Name of that Dish of Meat which it loves best. In Holland they are termed Pickled Herrings; in France, Jean Pottages; in Italy, Maccaronies; and in Great ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... exertion—fight shy of diversion (Remember, the proverb says 'Laugh and grow fat'); You may venture securely on Punch, because surely There can't be much fear of your laughing ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... more plausible but equally pernicious, is that superficial knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all. That "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" is a saying which has now got currency as a proverb stamped in the mint of Pope's versification; of Pope, who with the most imperfect knowledge of Greek translated Homer, with the most imperfect knowledge of the Elizabethan drama edited Shakespeare, and with the most imperfect ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... be something to save. Lockhart must be liked where his good qualities are known, and where his fund of information has room to be displayed. But, notwithstanding a handsome exterior and face, I am not sure he will succeed in London Society; he sometimes reverses the proverb, and gives the volte strette e pensiere sciolti, withdraws his attention from the company, or attaches himself to some individual, gets into a corner, and seems to be quizzing the rest. This is ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... troops burst through the breaches, an exodus had begun from the gates of the town on the other side, and across the bridge over the Jumna. Our heavy guns could have destroyed this bridge, and our cavalry might have swept round the city and cut off the retreat on the other side; but the proverb that it is good to build a bridge for a flying foe was eminently applicable here. Had the enemy felt their retreat cut off—had they known that certain death awaited them unless they could drive us out of the city, the defense would have been so desperate ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... during which he had imprudently remained in conversation in an unwholesome situation, he called upon the writer of these sheets, and complained of agueish symptoms, mentioning his intention of taking some medicine, and repeating jocularly an old proverb, that "an ague in the spring is medicine for a king." He had no suspicion at the time of the real nature of his indisposition, which proved in fact to be a complaint common in Bengal, an inflammation in the liver. The disorder was, however, soon discovered ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... wherein lies the welfare of others. Give him some fairy power, inexhaustible purses or magic lamps, not, however, applying to the mind; and see whether he could make those whom he would favour good or happy. In the East, they have a proverb of this kind, Happy are the children of those fathers who go to the Evil One. But for anything that our Western experience shows, the proverb might be reversed, and, instead of running thus, Happy ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... Greek languages, and which may well therefore be classed among the trees producing necessaries of life,—venerabile donum fatalis virgae. That money-trees existed in the golden age there want not prevalent reasons for our believing. For does not the old proverb, when it asserts that money does not grow on every bush, imply a fortiori, that there were certain bushes which did produce it? Again, there is another ancient saw to the effect that money is the root of all evil. From which two adages it may be safe to infer ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... sore, and sang full sweet, to bring the babe to rest, That would not cease, but cried still, in sucking at her breast. She was full weary of her watch, and grieved with her child; She rocked it and rated it, till that on her it smiled: Then did she say, Now have I found this proverb true to prove The falling out of faithful friends, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... homo" is a Latin proverb which means that one man alone is no man at all. A man who should be neither son, brother, husband, father, neighbor, citizen, or friend is inconceivable. To try to think of such a man is like trying to think of a stone without size, weight, surface, or color. Man is by nature a social being. ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... the fancy as she was then (which she is not at all), and that if the fancy had not married some one else for money, but had married him for love, he and she would have been happy (which they wouldn't have been), and that she has a tenderness for him still (whereas her toughness is a proverb). Brooding over the fire, with his dried little head in his dried little hands, and his dried little elbows on his dried little knees, Twemlow is melancholy. 'No Adorable to bear me company here!' thinks he. 'No Adorable at the club! ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... me; a happy pendant to the old proverb, Love me, love my dog. Well, then, for Menie Gray's sake, if not for Dick Middlemas's, (plague on that vulgar tell-tale name,) will you, that are a stander-by, tell us, who are the unlucky players, what you think of ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... an old proverb, is a great evil; and a great preface, says a new one, is a great bore. It is not, therefore, our intention to expatiate largely on the present occasion; especially since a long discourse prefixed to a small volume, is like a forty-eight pounder ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... course of time the merchant's son grew up. Praise be to Brahma! what a wonderful youth it was, with a face like a monkey's, legs like a stork's, and a back like a camel's. You know the old proverb:— ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... matter," I reflected. "What has been left incomplete now, shall be finished another day." Nor did I fail to keep the promise thus made to myself. It was difficult to get even a few words of particular conversation with one pupil among so many; but, according to the old proverb, "Where there is a will, there is a way;" and again and again I managed to find an opportunity for exchanging a few words with Mdlle. Henri, regardless that envy stared and detraction whispered ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... rains unless it pours: Now I can have the other readily. The proverb hits me aptly: "Well they do Who doff the old love ere they don the new!" [He glances again over the letter.] Yes, Caulaincourt now writes he has every hope Of quick success in settling the alliance! The Tsar is willing—even anxious for it, His sister's ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... "you know the proverb: 'Ask not a stranger who is naked where are his clothes.' Let that answer for me. I am hungry and thirsty, I am weak and ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... great body of bribery against him, was providentially freed from Nundcomar, one of his accusers, and, as good events do not come alone, (I think there is some such proverb,) it did so happen that all the rest, or a great many of them, ran away. But, however, the recorded evidence of the former charges continued; no new evidence came in; and Mr. Hastings enjoyed that happy repose which branded peculation, fixed and eternized upon the records ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in abundance when the need of them is past. Stately monuments are erected to them, and their children are petted and caressed, and a tardy, jealous, and hypocritical world strives to win self-respect by the payment of a debt long overdue. "Speak nothing but good of the dead" is a proverb that had its birth in the world's sense of its own meanness,—the consciousness that it had not done justice to the dead while they were living. Many a man is systematically abused during all his active life, only to lie down in his grave amid the laudations ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... truth. For that reason, the person who has convinced himself of his truth artificially, watches all doubts and objections with much greater care than a man who has no doubt whatever in what he says. The former, moreover, does not have a good conscience, and the proverb says truly, "a bad conscience has a fine ear.'' The man knows that he is not dealing correctly with the thing and hence he observes all objections, and the fact that he does so observe, can not be easily ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... which end," excused Mr. Scraggs. "Maybe 'twas the front end he meant; then the proverb 'ud read that he never begun anythin' unless he could see the commencement of it; which is a wise and thoughtful statement, because had it been otherwise, and therefore essentially different, ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... 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 ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... Freedom of others as their own; yet continuing long in such a place, where honors and greatness come in, they become selfish, seeking themselves, and not Common Freedom; as experience proves it true in these days, according to this common proverb—'Great offices in a Land and Army have changed the disposition ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... much importance had been attached to his opinion, he ventured to criticise a leg, but Apelles rushed out from behind the curtain, and, charging him with being hypercritical, told him that for the future he would do better to keep to his trade. The circumstance gave rise to the Roman proverb—"Ne sutor ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... sups with the devil should hold a long spoon.' All the same, if you can bear another proverb, 'It's an ill wind,' etc. If I hadn't been hard up for a refuge, I should never have thought of bringing you up here, and for any one to get an idea of Oxford it's as good a place as ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... the balance of sentences and the prose rhyme and rhythm which Easterns look upon as mere music. This "Saj'a," or cadence of the cooing dove, has in Arabic its special duties. It adds a sparkle to description and a point to proverb, epigram and dialogue; it corresponds with our "artful alliteration" (which in places I have substituted for it) and, generally, it defines the boundaries between the classical and the popular ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... some way involved in this failure, and lost, I fancy, a considerable sum of money; but he never talked much on the subject. He was an unflinching believer in the spilt-milk proverb. ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... a person is in great pain, the cause of which he cannot remove, he sets his teeth firmly together, or bites some substance between them with great vehemence, as another mode of violent exertion to produce a temporary relief. Thus we have a proverb where no help can be had in pain, "to grin and abide;" and the tortures of hell are said to be attended ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... maliciously have perceived how ill the four candle-snuffers crawled as elephants, and the triumphal car discovered its want of a lid. But having pre-excited attention, we had full leisure to sharpen our eye. To these imprudent authors and actors we may apply a Spanish proverb, which has the peculiar quaintness of that people, Aviendo pregonado vino, venden vinagre: "Having cried up their ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... to Roan Street as the scene of the tragedy. Roan Street I found to be a somewhat squalid by-street, running out of Skelton Street, close—it seemed significantly close—to the old parish church. One could not help thinking of the familiar proverb, "The nearer the church, the farther from God." The actual locality is called Munyard's Row, being some dozen moderate-sized houses in Roan Street, let out in lodgings, the particular house in question being again, with a horrible grotesqueness, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... begun, The work's half done," So says the proverb old; But even here, You'll see it clear, The truth is but half told; For wisdom says There are two ways, One loses and one wins; You'll find, young friends, That all depends ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... Miss Minturn, that you are to room with Miss Sadie Minot, a young lady from Atlanta, Georgia, and I think you will find her an agreeable companion. However"—with a humorous twinkle in his eyes—"to use a homely proverb, 'it is Hobson's choice,' for it happens to be the only vacancy in the building; we have a very full school this year. I will call some one to show you how to find it, and have ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... queer creature Master Bob appropriately christened 'The Prawnee Chief,' much to the annoyance of Miss Nell, who had become quite grand now in her language, becoming 'puffed up,' as Bob said, with her newly-acquired 'knowledge'—a 'little' of which, as the proverb tells us, ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... say what Manilov's real character was. A class of men exists whom the proverb has described as "men unto themselves, neither this nor that—neither Bogdan of the city nor Selifan of the village." And to that class we had better assign also Manilov. Outwardly he was presentable enough, for his features ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... for Lawyer Ed's love for Roderick was a proverb in Algonquin. He had never heard her laugh before. The sound was ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... fire and sword: the latter could only kill, but the other could annihilate. See how thoroughly it does its work, even when domesticated: it takes up everything upon the hearth and leaves all clean. The Greek proverb says, that "the sea drinks up all the sins of the world." Save fire only, the sea is the most capacious of ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the Lord to the Jews in a like case: "What means this proverb which you take up, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? It is not so, O house of Israel. The son shall not die for the iniquity of his father, nor the father for the iniquity ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... information of the vessel and address to which your valise was committed, and myself, for having waited till I heard of your being again immerged into the land of newspapers before forwarded your key. However, as you have at length got them safe, I claim absolution under the proverb, that 'all is ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... old proverb has it, there are a knave and a fool. Between Sir George bursting with passion, and the door by which he had entered and to which he turned, stood Lady Dunborough. Her ladyship had been one of the first to hear the news and to take the alarm; it is safe to say, also, that for ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... asserted boldly that a man's house ought to grow around him like an oyster's-shell, and should fit him just as perfectly; in fact, that it should be created, not built. From architects and their works he prayed devoutly to be delivered, and having theretofore illustrated that part of the proverb which avers that "fools build houses," he declared himself determined thenceforth only to illustrate the latter-part of the proverb:—"and wise men live ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... proverb is truer than people think," she replied, with a wise nod of her head. "Don't you remember, Nan, when the Parkers' dance was put off, and then old Mr. Parker died; and nearly the same thing happened with the Normatons, only it was ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... combine his own interests and those of France. Meanwhile the Protestants believed somewhat doubtfully that he was theirs, the Catholics hoped somewhat doubtfully that he would be theirs, and Henry himself turned aside remonstrance, advice, and curiosity alike with a jest or a proverb (if a little high, he liked them none the worse), joking continually as his manner was. We have seen Mr. Lincoln contemptuously compared to Sancho Panza by persons incapable of appreciating one of the deepest pieces of wisdom ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... heart on choosing the best, I resolved not to be dissuaded by common objections against anthologies—that they repeat one another until the proverb [Greek] loses all application—or perturbed if my judgement should often agree with that of good critics. The best is the best, though a hundred judges have declared it so; nor had it been any feat to search out ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... "close-grained stone," he explained that because the people of that section were "tight" (stingy) they were called Kaweleau alapaa. This ready imitativeness, often converted into caricature, enters into the minutest detail of life and is the clew to many a familiar proverb like that of the canoe on the coral reef quoted in the text.[3] The chants abound in such symbols. Man is "a long-legged fish" offered to the gods. Ignorance is the "night of the mind." The cloud hanging over Kaula is a bird ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous |
