"Proverb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... old man went on, 'you are a pair of fools, and a fool and his money is a pithy proverb, and true enough of one of you. But it is well sometimes to treat a fool according to his folly, and so, if you are really ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... ministerium." (65.) 3. Every meeting of the General Synod would mean for them a traveling expense of $168. 4. As the Planentwurf was subject to change, union with the General Synod would be tantamount "'to buying the cat in the bag,' as the proverb has it." These scruples reveal the fact that the Tennessee Synod viewed the General Synod as a body which was hierarchical in its polity and thoroughly un-Lutheran in its doctrinal position, an opinion well founded, even though the objections advanced ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... 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 ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... considered great, simply because they improved 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 dined ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... loved and lost than never to have loved at all," says the old proverb. True enough. But one might write it this way, with even more truth: "It is better to love and lose than to love and gain." One means by love, romantic love, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... proverb. Thank God, I won your love as a vagabond. I can treasure it as the richest of my princely possessions. You have not said that you will go to my ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... many of the darksome legends of Brittany, it may be doubted if any are more awe-inspiring than that which we are now about to relate. "Those who are affianced three times without marrying shall burn in hell," says an old Breton proverb, and it is probably this aphorism which has given the Bretons such a strong belief in the sacred nature of a betrothal. The fantastic ballad from which this story is taken is written in the dialect of Leon, ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... Toto without hesitation; "and everything that falls from heaven is good," he added, quoting an ancient proverb. ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... it when it gave up; and the workmen generally declared it to be a "perfect plague." Mr. Blackett did not obtain credit amongst his neighbours for these experiments. Many laughed at his machines, regarding them only in the light of crotchets,—frequently quoting the proverb that "a fool and his money are soon parted." Others regarded them as absurd innovations on the established method of hauling coal; and pronounced that ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... boy, and with no stain upon his name. But while memory whispered of past innocence, conscience told him of present guilt; told him that if his father could have foreseen what he would become, his heart would have broken; told him, and he knew it, that his name was a proverb and a byeword in the school. But the prominent and the recurring thought was ever this—"Is it too late to mend? Is the door shut against me?" For Wilton remembered how once before his mind was harrowed by fear and guilt as he had listened to Mr Percival's parting sermon on that ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... 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 ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... were numerous houses or places of resort for gambling, genteel and ungenteel. In vain did the officers of the law seem to exert their utmost vigilance; if they drove the serpent out of one hole it soon glided into another; never was the proverb—'Where there's a will there's ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... There is an old proverb which all the world knows, Anything may be spoke, if 't be under the rose: Then now let us speak, whilst we are in the hint, Of the state of the land, and th' ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... people, as with most nations, "things are worth what they will sell for," and the dollar is mightier than the sword. As good as gold has become a proverb—as though it were the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... the influence of the laws and maxims of government, an influence which, in this country more than elsewhere, has given a bias to the manners, sentiments, and moral character of the people; for here every ancient proverb carries with it the force of a law. While they are by nature quiet, passive, and timid, the state of society and the abuse of the laws by which they are governed, have rendered them indifferent, unfeeling, and even cruel, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... he said, "to the proverb that 'a rolling stone gathers no moss.' I've gathered all I want or know what to do with; and now I'm married I mean to take a rest. I haven't decided yet where or how, but it will be somewhere in England. We're looking for a house in London, and later ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Europeans who know the Chinese well would deny. The Chinese are naturally reserved, earnest and good-natured; for the occasional outbursts of ferocious violence, notably against foreign settlements, are no index to the national character. There is a national proverb that "the men of the Four Seas are all brothers," and even strangers can travel through the country without meeting with rudeness, much less outrage. If the Chinese character is inferior to the European, this inferiority lies in the fact that the Chinaman's whole philosophy of life disinclines ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... coves the evening air is thrusting forth a thin film of mist to spread a white floor above the waters. The gathering darkness deepens the quiet of the lake, and bids us, at least for this time, to forsake it. "De soir fontaines, de matin montaignes," says the old French proverb,—Morning for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... triumph commenced by his purchasing for an old song a dragoon's horse at Mallow, who was so savage "that he was obliged to be fed through a hole in the wall." After one of Sullivan's lessons the trooper drew a car quietly through Mallow, and remained a very proverb of gentleness for years after. In fact, with mule or horse, one half-hour's lesson from Sullivan was enough; but they relapsed in other hands. Sullivan's own account of the secret was, that he originally ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... crowd, the 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 ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... takes no account of ameliorating circumstances. The sanguinary ingenuity in the constant slights and stabs to which she is exposed makes her life a martyrdom and finally kills her. "Contempt will pierce the armor of a tortoise," says an oriental proverb; and poor Ragni had no chelonian armor. When her most harmless remarks are misinterpreted and her most generous acts become weapons wherewith to slay her, she loses all heart for resistance, and merely lies down ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... supply enormous; but it was equalled by the demand, and myriads of captives are said to have been shipped to the island and to have quitted it in a single day. The ease and rapidity of the business transacted by the master of a slave-ship became a proverb;[240] and honest mercantile undertakings with their tardy gains must have seemed contemptible in comparison with this facile ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... worldly way, the men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful and hopeful men, who went about their business with a smile on their faces, and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like men, facing rough and smooth alike as it came, and so found the truth of the old proverb, that 'Good times, and bad times, and all times pass over.' Of all men, perhaps, who have lived in our days, the most truly successful was the great Duke of Wellington; and one thing, I believe, which helped him most to become great, was that he was so wonderfully free from vain ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... applauds them while it tramples better men beneath its brutal feet. Greatness and Gall, genius and goose-speech, sound and sense have become synonyms. If you fall on the wrong side of the market men will quote the proverb about a fool and his money: if on the right side you're a Napoleon of finance. Lead a successful revolt and you are a pure patriot whose memory should be preserved to latest posterity; head an unsuccessful uprising and you are a miserable ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... how I love thee'—oh the dear eloquence those few short words contain, when they are sent with lovers' accents to a soul all languishing! But now—alas, thy love is more familiar grown—oh take the other part of the proverb too, and say it has bred contempt, for nothing less than that your letter shews, but more it does, and that is indifference, less to be borne than hate, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... I shall not. There is an old proverb which says, 'Trust not the man who promises with an oath.' Is not my simple word, then, the ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... who are not far from the kingdom of God; who, nevertheless, are not within that kingdom, and who, therefore, if they remain where they are, are as certainly lost as if they were at an infinite distance from the kingdom. The homely proverb applies to them: "A miss is as good as a mile." They are those who suppose that elevated moral sentiments, an aesthetic pleasure in noble acts or noble truths, a glow and enthusiasm of the soul at the sight or the recital of examples of Christian virtue and Christian grace, a disgust at the ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... 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 that yield ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... have? You know your own English proverb: 'Ask no questions and you'll be told no lies.' It's no pleasure to me to fool people that way, but I must answer them somehow when they ask what made a cripple of me; and I may as well invent something pretty while I'm about it. You saw ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... An old proverb says: "It is not work, but worry, that kills." How true this is. Congenial work is a health-bringer, a necessity for a normal life, a joy; it keeps the body in order, promotes digestion, induces the sleep of perfect restoration and is one of man's ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... pretty, the wives and daughters of the principal merchants of Rouen, who were waiting to compliment him. He seated himself in this charming circle, and remained there perhaps a quarter of an hour; then passed into another room, where awaited him the representation of a little proverb, containing couplets expressing, as may be imagined, the attachment and gratitude of the inhabitants of Rouen. This play was ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... roads are execrable. The Chinese have a proverb which says: "A road is good for ten years and bad for ten thousand," and this applies most excellently to those of Yuen-nan. The main caravan highways are paved with huge stones to make them passable during the rainy season, but after a few years' wear the ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... were heavy trout; but no sooner had they departed, than I became firmly convinced, in accordance with a psychological law which holds good all over the world, that they were both enormous salmon. Even the Turks have a proverb which says, "Every fish that escapes appears larger than it is." No one can alter that conviction, because no one can logically refute it. Our best blessings, like our largest fish, always depart before we have ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... the poor devil will not do your business as well as you would do it yourself," said William: "you know the proverb of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... tell you of myself, that I have been better since I wrote to you. Mazzinghi {14} tells me that November weather breeds Blue Devils—so that there is a French proverb, 'In October, de Englishman shoot de pheasant: in November he shoot himself.' This I suppose is the case with me: so away with November, as soon as may be. 'Canst thou my Clora' is being put in proper musical trim: and ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... is so now, if it wasn't in olden time. The proverb says, 'Young people think old people to be fools, but old people know young people to be fools.' We must alter that, for I says, 'Old people think young people to be fools, but young people know ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of the day peace reigned at Wood End House. Mr. Churton, whose absence at mealtime was never made the subject of remark, did not return to tea when the three ladies met again; for now, according to that proverb of the Peninsula which says "Tell me who you are with, and I will tell you who you are," Fan had ceased to belong to the extensive genus Young Person, and might only be classified as Young Lady, at all events for so ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... down the windward side of the wagging coach. This is a mere trifle. The Jimville stage is built for five passengers, but when you have seven, with four trunks, several parcels, three sacks of grain, the mail and express, you begin to understand that proverb about the road which has been reported to you. In time you learn to engage the high seat beside the driver, where you get good air and the best company. Beyond the desert rise the lava flats, scoriae strewn; sharp-cutting ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... became a proverb of hospitality and good cheer. The two sang duets, or Caroline recited poems, while Carl improvised accompaniments; excursions to the fields, and water parties, and hilarious reunions of the opera-troupe kept life busy. Later, he took ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... weather which had prevailed since the Kansas drifted into the estuary seemed to become more settled as the month wore. Suarez said it was unprecedented. Not only had he not witnessed in five years three consecutive days without rain, snow, or hail, but the Indians had a proverb: "Who so-ever sees fire-in-the-sky (the sun) for seven days shall see the leaf red a hundred times." In effect, centenarians were needed to bear testimony to a week's fine weather; whereas no man—most ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... and common friendship, for you went out of your way in 1817 to do me a service, when it required, not merely kindness, but courage to do so; to have been mentioned by you, in such a manner, would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time, 'when all the world and his wife,' as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was something still more complimentary to my self-esteem. Had it been a common criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have felt pleased, undoubtedly, and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... of policy which bring him preferment or popularity are pretty sure to have been devised in moments of happy inspiration, or perhaps during the watches of the night, by a feminine brain. Good mothers make saints and heroes, says the proverb, and beyond a doubt wise wives make bishops. Their influence is not the less real because, unlike that of Mrs. Proudie, it is exerted chiefly behind the scenes. It is possibly because the influence possessed by women is so intangible, depending as it does less ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... mischievous smile again; and she spoke much as she might have done to an eagerly listening child. "Six years pass by. My father is again in the east of France, and he goes to the old village. He is received with enthusiasm; his name has become a proverb. Rossignol pere, alas, is dead, long since. Dear Madame Rossignol lives, but my father sees at a glance that she will not live long. The excitement of meeting him was almost too much for her—pale, sweet little woman. Thibaut was keeping shop with her, but he seemed out of place there; a ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... grace, or acquirement belonging without dispute to the one, and which the other lacked. What was it? She had heard her father say when talking of gentlemen,—of that race of gentlemen with whom it had been his lot to live,—that you could not make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The use of the proverb had offended her much, for she had known well whom he had then regarded as a silk purse and whom as a sow's ear. But now she perceived that there had been truth in all this, though she was as anxious as ever to think well of her husband, and to endow him with ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... evening; and, although she would not allow him a chair, she permitted him to remain standing at the counter and smoke his cigar while they conversed. It was this indulgence which occasioned people to think that she would marry the doctor; but at last they got tired of waiting, and it became a sort of proverb in Fisher's Alley and its precincts, when things were put off to an indefinite period, to say, "Yes, that will be done when the widow marries ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Neither prayers nor arguments could persuade the Commander to get out of bed. With his cotton nightcap over his ears and his face to the wall, he contented himself with replying to Tartarin's objurgations by a cynical Tarasconese proverb: "Whoso has the credit of getting up early may sleep until midday..." As for Bom-pard, he kept repeating, the whole time, "Ah, vai, Mont Blanc... what a humbug..." Nor did they rise until the P. C. A. had issued a ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... 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 ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... 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, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the coble; but so long as it holds the vessel will lie well over and sail with amazing swiftness. Years upon years of apprenticeship are needed before a man can manage one of these crank boats; in fact, the fishermen's proverb says, "You must be born in a coble if you want to learn anything ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... go out. The others sit in line and choose a proverb having as many words as there are players. Thus, if there were eight players, "They love too much who die for love" would do; or if more than eight, two short proverbs might be chosen. Each player having made certain what ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... success of her experiment. However, she knew that Nan could be trusted to repeat to the other servants all that she had said, and that it would lose nothing in the recital; and, as for the future, one of Hetty's first principles of action was an old proverb which her grandfather had explained to her when she ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... where river water is drank, which has its source from dissolving snows. This idea is a very ancient one, but perhaps not on that account to be the more depended upon, as authors copy one another. Tumidum guttur quis miratur in alpibus, seems to have been a proverb in the time of Juvenal. The inferior people of Derby are much subject to this disease, but whether more so than other populous towns, I can not determine; certain it is, that they chiefly drink the water of the Derwent, which arises in a mountainous country, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the jewels was the same who had executed such a neat manoeuvre at Gilling's. One or two of the papers actually published leaderettes upon the subject, severely criticising the incompetency of the police in such matters. I have since heard, however, that at Scotland Yard there is a proverb that the wealthier the thief the less chance of his being caught. Bindo and his friends certainly did not lack funds. The various hauls they had made, even since my association with them, must have put many thousands into ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... having thus been presented, I turned it over to Mr. Low, who agreed to bring it to-morrow morning with such modifications, omissions, and additions as seemed best to him. The old proverb, "'T is always darkest just before daylight," seems exemplified in the affairs of to-day, since the kind reception given to my draft of the report, and the satisfaction expressed regarding it, form a most happy ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... country, and especially upon Pennsylvania and Maryland, whose inhabitants began to fear lest New York, Alexandria, or Richmond should snatch the Western trade from Philadelphia or Baltimore. The truth that underlies the proverb that "history repeats itself" is well illustrated by the fact that the first macadamized road in America was built in Pennsylvania, for here also originated the pack-horse trade and the Conestoga horse and wagon; here the first ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... 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 gentleman ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... Enlightened by the shrewd comments of the old sergeant, the quiet penetration of his father's glance, which saw everything, he soon realized that fraud and self-seeking were become the ruling impulse in Beausejour. "Like master, like man" was a proverb which he saw daily fulfilled. Vergor thought more of robbing than of serving his country, and from him his subordinates took their cue. Le Loutre, with his fiery fanaticism, went up, by contrast, in the estimation of the honest-hearted ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... not, yet the French esteem this fish highly; and to that end have this proverb " He that hath Breams in his pond, is able to bid his friend welcome "; and it is noted, that the best part of a Bream is his belly ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... slender footstalk about as long as the leaf, and compressed laterally from near the base. They are thus agitated by the slightest breath of wind with that quivering, restless motion characteristic of all the poplars, but in none so striking as this. 'To quiver like an aspen-leaf has become a proverb. The foliage appears lighter than that of most other trees, from continually displaying the under side ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... personality assume an interest altogether out of proportion to their intrinsic importance. Our debt to Ellwood is, it must be admitted, much less than it might have been, if he had thought a little more of Milton and a little less of his somewhat stupid self and the sect to which he belonged. But, as the proverb says, we must not look a gift-horse in the mouth, and we are the richer for the Quaker's reminiscences. With Ellwood's work, the History of Thomas Ellwood, written by Himself, we are only concerned so far as it bears on his relation with Milton. ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... become compressed into expressions which to-day we recognize as proverbs. The words of the Mother Duck, "Into the water he goes if I have to kick him in," became a Scandinavian proverb. "A little bird told it," a common saying of to-day, appears in Andersen's Nightingale and in Thumbelina. But this saying is traceable at least to the third story of the fourth night in Straparola, translated by Keightley, The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... and the corruption was suggested by the epithet of Herakles, Alexikakos, or "the averter of ill." Originally, however, the name was Caecius, "he who blinds or darkens," and it corresponds literally to the name of the Greek demon Kaikias, whom an old proverb, preserved by Aulus Gellius, describes as a stealer of the ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... contemporaries, and of most of ours too. Johnson liked satisfying food, such as a leg of pork, or veal pie well stuffed, with plum pie and sugar, and he devoured enormous quantities of fruit, especially peaches. His inordinate love of tea has almost passed into a proverb,—he has actually been credited with twenty-five cups at a sitting, and he would keep Mrs. Thrale brewing it for him till four o'clock in the morning. The following impromptu, spoken to Miss ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... of Mevagissy Bay; and, as Ray tells us: "These are two forelands, well known to sailors, nigh twenty miles asunder, and the proverb passeth for the periphrasis of an impossibility." The Head, which is nearly insular, has a chapel dedicated to St. Michael on its summit. St. Michael was widely claimed as a patron of lofty and exposed places (such ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... a sea to do with arms? What has a camel,[Footnote: Meantime, though using this case as an illustration, I believe that camel is, after all, the true translation; first, on account of the undoubted proverb in the East about the elephant going through the needle's eye; the relation is that of contrast as to magnitude; and the same relation holds as to the camel and the needle's eye; secondly, because ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... crawl on his fours with his little child upon his back. If you would raise good children let your example at home be accordingly. As you will teach them so they will act. If you are a devil they will scarcely be angels. Children are keen observers. An old proverb says that a father is a looking-glass by which children dress themselves. See to it, fathers, that the glass be clean, so that your children's morals may ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... spider, it is said, changes her web every twenty-four hours, and the part of the day she chooses to do this is always significant. If it occurs a little before sunset, the night will be fine and clear. Hence the old French proverb: "Araignee ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... a halter to gain a horse. From the time they first gained a foothold on Plymouth Rock, they began to migrate, progressing and progressing from place to place, and land to land, making a little here and a little there, and controverting the old proverb, that a rolling stone gathers no moss. Hence they have facetiously received the nickname of "The Pilgrims," that is to say, a people who are always seeking a ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... must be risked in one desperate cast of the dice. "I and time against all men," says the proverb. No fresh caravan would be likely to come till spring. Meanwhile they must play against time. Burning the packet to ashes, they replaced it with a forged order instructing the commander on the Pacific ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... and well-dressed on his Lordship's property;" terms of abuse, which, together with the cause that produced them, are at this moment well known to thousands as expressions whose general occurrence on such, occasions has almost fixed them into proverb. Will our English neighbors believe this? That we know not, but we can assure ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... 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 ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... warn you, sweet lady, that love would find a way?" he said. "We have a proverb in Spain that the way to make sure of winning a girl is to make love to her mother. As you have no mother, I made love last night to Lady Fermanagh, who, I was told, is your guardian, and she invited me to call. Hence my presence here. The fates are kind, and now I can make love to you in ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... hands; prostitution is carried on to an enormous extent, and although loathsome concustant [sic] diseases stare the stranger in the face in the street, in the market-place, in the church, and at the fountain; 'Drunken as a Galician' is a proverb; and superstitions forgotten, abandoned in the rest of Spain, are clung to here with surprising pertinacity, the clergy exerting themselves to uphold them by carrying on a very extensive sale in charms, verifying the old saying, 'Witches are found ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... on him. When the asas said they were ready, the wolf shook himself, spurned against and dashed the fetter on the ground, so that the broken pieces flew a long distance. Thus he broke loose out of Drome. Since then it has been held as a proverb, "to get loose out of Lading" or "to dash out of Drome," whenever anything is extraordinarily hard. The asas now began to fear that they would not get the wolf bound. So Alfather sent the youth, who is called Skirner, and is Frey's messenger, ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... it shall come to pass in that day, that thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say: How hath the oppressor ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... and with cutting sarcasm: "Come now, I see that you don't catch the criminals nor do you know what is going on in your own house, yet you try to set yourself up as a preacher to point out their duties to others. You ought to keep in mind that proverb about the fool ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... be held as a feather-weight in the balance. Such as mine is, it is gathered mainly from the tone of casual conversation, from which I should conclude that a considerable proportion of Americans read a well-known proverb as "All's fair in love or business." Men—I will not say of a high character and standing, but men of a standing and character who would not have done it in England—told me instances of their sharp practices in business, with an evident expectation of my admiration for their ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... contemplates Majesty and its Satellites in Eclipse XLI One Quarrel is compromised, and another decided by unusual Arms XLII An unexpected Rencontre, and a happy Revolution in the Affairs of our Adventurer XLIII Fathom justifies the Proverb, "What's bred in the Bone will never come out of the Flesh" XLIV Anecdotes of Poverty, and Experiments for the Benefit of those whom it may concern XLV Renaldo's Distress deepens, and Fathom's Plot thickens ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... may happen? When I was a kid in the circus—you have heard, of course, that I spent my childhood in a travelling circus"—how simply he brought this out!—"the fat woman, we called her 'the fat lady' in those days, had a favourite proverb: 'When the skies fall we shall catch larks'. I reckon when the skies fall the people will ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... educated man: and if one is to be found who cannot read and write well, and accomplish far more abstruse things with his head, he is dubbed—a donkey. He is not now the debauched ignoramus which has made the English sailor a proverb all over the world. Education is of little value if it is not capable of changing a man's habits for the better. There is, however, much room for improvement in certain national traits; apropos of this, the "Mail" for September, 20th, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... causes of hysteria are deprivation of the pleasures of love, griefs connected with this passion, and disorders of menstruation. Foville in 1833 and Landouzy in 1846 advocated somewhat similar views. The acute Laycock in 1840 quoted as "almost a medical proverb" the saying, "Salacitas major, major ad hysteriam proclivitas," fully indorsing it. More recently still Clouston has defined hysteria as "the loss of the inhibitory influence exercised on the reproductive and sexual instincts ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... This formal fool, your man, speaks nought but proverbs, And speak men what they can to him, he'll answer With some rhyme-rotten sentence or old saying, Such spokes as th'ancient of the parish use, With, "Neighbour, 'tis an old proverb and a true, Goose giblets are good meat, old sack better than new;" Then says another, "Neighbour, that is true;" And when each man hath drunk his gallon round— A penny pot, for that's the old man's gallon— Then doth he lick his lips, and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... this invisible energy caught and swung and clashed them round his head like a wreath or salutation of seraphic wings. There was in it something more inspired and authoritative even than the old wind of the proverb; for this was the good ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... rose to her feet. "My medical attendant," she said, with an assumption of dignity; "I must explain myself." She held up one hand, outstretched; and counted her fingers with the other. "First my husband. Then my son. Now my maid. One, two, three. Mr. Null, do you know the proverb? 'It's the last hair that breaks the camel's back.'" She suddenly dropped on her knees. "Will somebody pray for me?" she cried piteously. "I don't know how to pray for myself. Where ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... endeavouring to increase it by giving advice. I think that the right of giving advice has of late years been largely used; and that it has sometimes been not only used, but abused. Still, there is truth in the proverb which says that lookers-on see more of the game than the players; and cases do occur when warning given by a friendly and neutral Power—by a Power which is well known to have no interest of its ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... of better days, which cheered the hopes of the Pastors of the Irish, when the twelfth century had entered on its third quarter. The pious old Gaelic proverb, which says, "on the Cross the face of Christ was looking westwards—," was again on the lips and in the hearts of men, and though much remained to be done, much had been already done, and done under difficulties greater than any that remained ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... thirteenth century, John de Trevisa, says that country-people "fondeth [that is, try] with great bysynes for to speke Freynsch for to be more y-told of." The country-people did not succeed very well, as the ordinary proverb shows: "Jack would be a gentleman if he could speak French." Boys at school were expected to turn their Latin into French, and in the courts of law French only was allowed to be spoken. But in 1362 Edward III. gave his assent ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... what I say," I continue, dragging my wicker chair along the shortly-shorn sward a little nearer to him. "Never! nobody ever does; I am a proverb and a by-word for my malapropos speeches. Mother always trembles when she hears me talking to a stranger. The first day that I dined after you came, Algy made me a list of things that I was not ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... 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 sky through the ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... wrong sort. I have known many a one who has lost name, fame, character, all that a woman holds most dear, and who has brought an honest name to disgrace, and broken a mother's heart, by mixing with bad company. The proverb says that a person is known by his friends, by the company he keeps. You cannot touch fire and escape burning, and you cannot keep company with those who laugh at religion, who make a mock at sin, who never pray, who talk immodestly, ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... of "some folks" and "other folks" had left the proverb dark to my understanding when I heard it, but I remembered it till I ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... nation as a whole cannot fail to benefit mentally, morally and physically. The success of the measures, of course, depends to some extent on their being taken in time, but in this, as in many other directions, the old proverb holds good: Better late ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout
... thought before they came to pass, or while they were taking place, that, only after all was over, he found himself compelled to exclaim in great surprise: "Whence have all these things come to me, when I never gave them a thought, or when I thought of something very different?" So that the proverb is true, "Man proposeth, but God disposeth"; [Prov. 16:9] that is, God turns things about, and brings to pass something far different from that which man proposes. Therefore, from this consideration ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... need, sir, is a friend indeed," said the stranger impressively; and Sam's face brightened, for he had heard the proverb before, and it promised to bring the conversation, which he had found some difficulty in following, down to safe, familiar ground. "Allow me to introduce you—but excuse me, I have not the pleasure of ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cheerful and hopeful men, who went about their business with a smile on their faces, and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like men, facing rough and smooth alike as it came, and so found the truth of the old proverb that "good times and bad times ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... this part of Surrey, that the large vale near my own dwelling, was anciently call'd Holmes-Dale; famous for the flight of the Danes: The inhabitants of great antiquity (in their manners, habits, speech) have a proverb, Holmes-Dale never won; he never shall. It had once a fort, call'd Homes-Dale Castle: I know not whether it might not be that of Rygate; but leaving this uncertain, and return to the plant, I have often wonder'd at our curiosity ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... proverb says, "is the maker and destroyer of kings;" certainly it was so in the case of Theodore. After the flight of Ras Ali, Begemder at once acknowledged him, and caused him to be looked upon as the future ruler of the land. Theodore was well aware of the difficult game he had to play, but believed ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... whom I have just translated what I have written on our subject to you, says—'If you loved me thoroughly, you would not make so many fine reflections, which are only good forbirsi i scarpi,'—that is, 'to clean shoes withal,'—a Venetian proverb of appreciation, which is applicable ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the greatest absurdities, even after they are exposed in the clearest manner. All religions are easily combated, but with difficulty extirpated. Reason avails nothing against custom, which becomes, says the proverb, a second nature. Many persons, in other respects sensible, even after having examined the rotten foundation of their belief, adhere to it in contempt of the most striking arguments. Whenever we complain of religion, its shocking absurdities, and impossibilities, ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... not famous for these virtues—the restless, ever-moving class that pioneer the way towards the setting sun. But perhaps we are leaving the boy propped too long on his hoe. Let us take a more critical look at him. "Fine feathers don't make fine birds," observes the old proverb. Forgetting the dress, then, please study his face. A clear, deep-blue eye, delicately-arched eyebrows, regular features, mouth and chin indicating decision and native refinement, and a well-developed forehead. Ah, here may be a diamond in the ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... Ludlum's Dog (No. 24. p. 382.).—This proverb is repeated somewhat differently in The Doctor, &c., "As lazy as Ludlum's dog, as leaned his head against a wall to bark." I venture to suggest that this is simply one of the large class of alliterative proverbs so common in every language, and often without meaning. In Devonshire ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various
... the chief sources of his greatness. At that period, perhaps at any period, he would have been incapable of such brilliant and dashing exploits as had made the name of Egmont so famous. It had even become a proverb, "the counsel of Orange, the execution of Egmont," yet we shall have occasion to see how far this physical promptness which had been so felicitous upon the battle-field was likely to avail the hero of St. Quentin in the great political combat ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... subject to violent winds, of which the most disastrous is the mistral. The popular proverb is, however, somewhat exaggerated, Avenio ventosa, sine vento venenosa, cum vento fastidiosa (windy Avignon, pest-ridden when there is no wind, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... my tears in your absence," said the Professor gaily, "with this glorious thought. It is my auspicious hand that has given the first push to your fortune in the world. Go, my friend! When your sun shines in Cumberland (English proverb), in the name of heaven make your hay. Marry one of the two young Misses; become Honourable Hartright, M.P.; and when you are on the top of the ladder remember that Pesca, at the ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... honey-moon lasts, for so long, perhaps, may novelty have a charm; but when that is ended, the lust of variety, the distinguishing characteristic of a rake, haunts him incessantly, like a ghost, and soon extinguishes all his principles of love, justice, and generosity. It is true, indeed, the proverb goes, that a reformed rake makes the best husband. It may be so, but then it is a truth of equal importance with this, that a pick-pocket going to the gallows is an honest man. His hands are tied behind him, and he has it not in his ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... the ministry to an extent that has not been approached by our English churches. (See Appendix under Sons of the Church.) Nearly all of these are bi-lingual in their ministerial work and many of them serve exclusively English churches. There is a proverb about killing the goose that lays the golden egg, which we would do ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... he cried, in an animated tone. "It was I who encroached on your time, and must bear the blame, if blame indeed there be. There is a homely proverb, that 'many hands make light work.' Come, let ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... ARE OFTEN FATAL.—Begin well, and the habit of doing well will become quite as easy as the habit of doing badly. "Well begun is half ended," says the proverb; "and a good beginning is half the battle." Many promising young men have irretrievably injured themselves by a first false step at the commencement of life; while others, of much less promising talents, have succeeded simply ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... not ascribe it either to Greek deity, or to superstition; we call it luck. And he who possesses luck should be happy notwithstanding the proverb which hints the contrary. Luck means more than riches—it means happiness in most of those things, which the fortunate possessor of it may choose to touch. Should he speculate, he is successful; if he marry, his wife will surely ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume |
