“Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.”
“Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.”
“Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.”
“The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.”
“In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.”
“Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.”
“The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.”
“One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.”
“A closed mouth catches no flies.”
“Fair and softly goes far.”
“Tell me thy company, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.”
“No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.”
“Thou hast seen nothing yet.”
“He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.”
“To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there’s more reason to fear than to hope.”
“No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden better than her own reserve.”
“Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.”
“The eyes those silent tongues of love.”
“Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.”
“Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable.”
“Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.”
“Alas! all music jars when the soul’s out of tune.”
“A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.”
“For a man to attain to an eminent degree in learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences.”
“There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.”
“It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.”
“Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.”
“Valor lies just halfway between rashness and cowardice.”
“When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.”
“Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.”
“Be a terror to the butchers, that they may be fair in their weight; and keep hucksters and fraudulent dealers in awe, for the same reason.”
“Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.”
“It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.”
“The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.”
“To be prepared is half the victory.”
“Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.”
“Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.”
“That which costs little is less valued.”
“Tis a dainty thing to command, though twere but a flock of sheep.”
“A person dishonored is worst than dead.”
“From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgment.”
“There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.”
“He had a face like a blessing.”
“Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.”
“He preaches well that lives well.”
“I have always heard, Sancho, that doing good to base fellows is like throwing water into the sea.”
“Man appoints, and God disappoints.”
“Pray look better, Sir… those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.”
“The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.”
“Virtue is the truest nobility.”
“Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.”
“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
“Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.”
“True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.”
“A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency.”
“Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.”
“Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.”
“That’s the nature of women, not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.”
“Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise.”
“There’s no taking trout with dry breeches.”
“There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.”
“Jests that give pains are no jests.”
“When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.”
“I believe there’s no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.”
“I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.”
“’Tis ill talking of halters in the house of a man that was hanged.”
“Every man is the son of his own works.”
“God bears with the wicked, but not forever.”
“There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war.”
“Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.”
“Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.”
“Well, there’s a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.”
“One of the most considerable advantages the great have over their inferiors is to have servants as good as themselves.”
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