Proverbs:Friendship

Friendship

Treasure is not always a friend, but a friend is always a treasure.
—Francis Bacon (1561-1626 British philosopher and author)
Friendship is love without his wings.
—George Gordon Byron (1788-1824 British poet)
Friendship is both a source of pleasure and a component of good health.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1830-1882 American essayist and poet)
No road is long with good company.
—English proverb
A true friend is forever a friend.
—George MacDonald(1824-1905 British author and poet)
Old friends and old wine are best.
—John Ray (1627-1705 British naturalist)
There are three faithful friends — an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790 American politician and scientist)
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
—John Ray (1627-1705 British naturalist)
He that will not allow his friend to share the prize must not expect him to share the danger.
—Aesop (620-560 B.C. Greeks fabulist)
The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862 American author)
Admonish your friends privately, but praise them openly.
—Publilius Syrus (1st century B.C. Roman writer)
Like knows like.
—Draxe
Tell me thy company, I will tell thee what thou art.
—Miguel Cervantes (1547-1616 Spanish novelist)
A friend’s eye is a good looking glass.
—Benjamin Franklin(1706-1790 American politician and scientist)
A friend is, as it were, a second self.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C. Roman statesman and orator)

Proverbs:Family, Parents and Children

Family, Parents and Children

Home is where the heart is.
—Pliny the Elder(Gaius Plinius Secundus 23-79 Roman scholar)
He is the happiest, be he King or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe(1749-1832 German poet and dramatist)
The family you came from isn’t as important as the family you are going to have.
—D. H. Laurence(1885-1930 British writer)
Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home.
—John Howard Payne(1791-1852 American playwright)
There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.
—Henry Ward Beecher(1813-1887 American clergyman)
Happy are the families where the government of parents is the reign of affection, and obedience of the children the submission to love.
—Francis Bacon(1561-1626 British philosopher and author)
Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.
—Sir Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941 Indian poet)
Birth is much, but breeding is more.
—Thomas Fuller(1608-1661 British churchman)
There is a skeleton in every house.
—William Makepeace Thackeray(1811-1863 British novelist)
Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves.
—Elbert Hubbard(1856-1915 American publisher and author)
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
—Thomas Fuller(1608-1661 British churchman)
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
—James Baldwin(1924-1987 American novelist)
Children need models rather than critics.
—Joseph Joubert(1754-1824 French essayist)
Like father, like son.
—Latin proverb
The father’s virtue is the child’s best inheritance.
—Francis Bacon(1561-1626 British philosopher and author)

Proverbs:Work and Leisure

Work and Leisure

If one desires to succeed in everything, he must pay the price.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson(1830-1882 American essayist and poet)
The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.
—Arthur Brisbane(1864-1910 American journalist)
The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.
—Elbert Hubbard(1856-1915 American philosopher and writer)
Work as though your strength were limitless.
—Sarah Bernhardt(1844-1923 French actress)
Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope(1694-1773 British statesman and writer)
To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
—Samuel Burler(1835-1902 British author)
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
—William Howells(1837-1920 American novelist and literary critic)
Leisure is the time for doing something useful
—Elias Howe(1819-1867 American inventor)
We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure.
—John Dryden(1631-1700 British Poet Laureate and playwright)
Leisure is the mother of philosophy.
—Thomas Hobbes(1588-1679 British philosopher)
If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.
—William Shakespeare(1564-1616 British playwright and poet)
Work is the grand cure for all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind.
—Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881 British essayist and historian)
Work has a bitter root but sweet fruit.
—German proverb
The fortunate people in the world — the only really fortunate people in the world, in my mind, — are those whose work is also their pleasure.
—Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill(1874-1965 British Prime Minister)
Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
—Samuel Butler(1835-1902 British author)

Proverbs:Education

Education

Better be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of misfortune.
—Plato(427-347 B.C. Greek philosopher)
As what sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.
—Joseph Addison(1672-1719 British poet and essayist)
Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
—Benjamin Franklin(1706-1790 American politician and scientist)
Education has for its object the formation of character.
—Herbert Spencer(1820-1903 British philosopher)
The object of educator is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.
—Robert Hutchins(1899-1977 American educational philosopher)
You can lead a man up to the university, but you can’t make him think.
—Finley Peter Dunne(1867-1936 American humorist and writer)
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
—William Butler Yeats(1865-1939 Irish poet)
Men learn while they teach.
—Lucius Annaeus Seneca(ca. 4 B.C.-65 A.D. Roman philosopher and statesman)
And gladly would learn, and gladly teach.
—Geoffrey Chaucer(ca. 1340-1400 British poet)
Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives himself.
—Edward Gibbon(1737-1794 British historian)
One father is more than a hundred school masters.
—George Herbert(1593-1633 British priest and poet)
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
—Henry Adams(1838-1918 American historian and novelist)
Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to slave.
—Henry Peter Brougham(1778-1868 British statesman)
Only the educated are free.
—Epictetus (55-135 Greek Stoic philosopher)
Only a nation of educated people could remain free.
—Thomas Jefferson(1743-1826 the 3rd President of the United States)

Proverbs:Books and Reading

Books and Reading

Books are the ever-burning lamps of accumulated wisdom.
—Glenn Curtiss(1878-1930 American aviation pioneer and inventor)
A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit.
—John Milton(1608-1674 British poet)
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries.
—René Descartes(1596-1650 French philosopher and mathematician)
A library is a repository of medicine for the mind.
—Francois Rabelais(ca. 1494-1553 French Renaissance humanist and writer)
Turn off the TV and read great books. They open doors in your brain.
—Richard Wolkomir(American writer)
Reading makes a full man.
—Francis Bacon(1561-1626 British philosopher and author)
I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of good books to read than a king who did not love reading.
—Thomas Macaulay(1800-1859 British poet, historian and politician)
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
—Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862 American author)
Great books are always contemporary. In contrast, the books we call “contemporary”, because they are currently popular, last only for a year or two, or ten at the most.
—Mortimer Jerome Adler(1902-2001 American educator)
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
—Francis Bacon(1561-1626 British philosopher and author)
I wonder whether what we are publishing now is worth cutting down trees to make paper for the stuff.
—Richard Brautigan(1935-1984 American novelist and poet)
Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.
—English proverb
The world is a beautiful book, but of little use to him who cannot read.
—Carlo Goldoni(1707-1793 Italian playwright)
Books are for use, not for show.
—William Lyon Phelps(1865-1934 American educator)
Laws die, books never.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton(1831-1891 British politician and poet)

Proverbs:Learning

Learning

It is not shame for a man to learn that which he knows not, whatever his age.
—Socrates(ca. 470-399 B.C. Greek philosopher)
All men naturally desire to know.
—Aristotle(384-322 B.C. Greek philosopher)
Never too old to learn.
—Thomas Middleton(ca. 1570-1627 British playwright)
By the street of “By and By” one arrives at the house of “Never”.
—English proverb
You can learn from everyone.
—Derek Bok(1930- former president of Harvard University)
Live to learn, not learn to live.
—Francis Bacon(1561-1626 British philosopher and author)
The years teach much which the days never know.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson(1830-1882 American essayist and poet)
The more we study the more we discover our ignorance.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792-1822 British poet)
To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
—Edmund Burke(1729-1797 British statesman and orator)
He who nothing questions, nothing learns.
—Sthephen Gosson(1554-1624 British writer)
He that sips of many arts, drinks none.
—Thomas Fuller(1608-1661 British churchman)
Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men learn much from fools.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater(1741-1801 Swiss poet)
Learning makes a good man better and ill man worse.
—Thomas Fuller(1608-1661 British churchman)
Intellect without morality is, so to speak, a tiger with a sword.
—Orison Marden(1848-1924 American spiritual author)
Histories make men wise; poems witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
—Francis Bacon(1561-1626 British philosopher and author)

Idioms:Culture

Culture

Love me, love my dog.
Business is business. /Call a spade a spade.
Being on sea, sail; being on land, settle.
Feather by feather the goose is plucked.
Still waters run deep.
Two heads are better than one. /Four eyes see more than two.
Between you and me.
Each bird loves to hear himself sing.
Virtue and happiness are mother and daughter.
Good wine needs no bush. /A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Beam with joy. /Spring in the air.
All’s grist that comes to the mill.
Short and sweet.
Give the devil his due.
Charity begins at home.

Idioms:Appraisement

Appraisement

Measure for measure. /Give tit for tat.
A miss is as good as a mile. /A little too late is much too late.
Have an eye to the main chance.
The eye is the mirror of the soul.
Call no man great before he is dead.
There are two sides to every story.
Better be alone than in bad company.
Build castles in the air. /Show him an egg, and instantly the whole air is full of feathers.
There is life in a mussel, though it be little.
Wise men learn by other men’s mistakes.
All roads lead to Rome.
The worth of a thing is best known by the want of it.
Old bees yield no honey. /The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
What millions died that Caesar might be great.
Every Jack has his Jill.

Idioms:Description

Description

It’s raining cats and dogs.
Wave after wave. /It never rains but it pours.
Cut to the quick.
A home from home. /Feel at home.
Know what’s what.
Talk of the devil and he will appear. /Speak of the angels, and you will hear their wings.
Give one a mouthful of moonshine.
Burn the candle at both ends.
Pat oneself on the back. /Hug oneself.
Reach the top of the ladder. /Reach the limit.
An old ox makes a straight furrow.
Today a man, tomorrow a mouse.
It came absolutely out of the blue.
Whether the pitcher strikes the stone, or the stone strikes the pitcher, it is bad for the pitcher.
Life is but a dream.

Idioms:Cause

Cause

He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned.
Out of nothing comes nothing.
For want of a nail, the shoe is lost; for want of a shoe, the horse is lost; and for want of a horse, the rider is lost.
The tree falls not at the first stroke.
The hand that gives gathers.
Experience must be bought.
Every sin brings its punishment with it.
Things present are judged by things past.
A straw will show which way the wind blows.
A baker’s wife may bite of a bun, a brewer’s wife may drink of a tun.
He who would climb the ladder must begin at the bottom.
Habit is a second nature.
Lose in hake but gain in herring.
Keep a thing seven years and you will find a use for it.
Prevention is better than cure.