"Proverb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... comfort in the ancient proverb: "Art talked to death shall rise again." Let us also recollect that "Dinky is as dinky does"; that "All is not Shaw that Bernards"; that "Better Yeates than Clever"; that words are so inexpensive that there is no moral crime in ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... iron is the most usual occupation of the Gypsies. In Hungary, this profession is so common, that there is a proverb: "So many ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... you go with, and I will tell you what you are," says the proverb. "Show me your dwelling, and I shall see ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... weak was he from continued exertion and loss of blood that but for the supporting wall I doubt that he even could have stood erect. But with the tenacity and indomitable courage of his kind he still faced his cruel and relentless foes—the personification of that ancient proverb of his tribe: "Leave to a Thark his head and one hand and he ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... are right. If you don't catch him, we shall hardly have lost time, for they say we must wait an hour or two for the Gemmi road to get clear of snow. Stay; don't go without eating. You won't keep it up on an empty stomach. Remember the proverb." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Irma, a dream had haunted me. In days long past it had come, when I was only an awkward laddie gazing after her on the Eden Valley meadows. Often it had returned to me during the tedious silences of three years—when, quite against the proverb, love had grown by ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... 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 Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... regarded that nothing she chose to write, however poor, could fail. And she certainly did write a good deal of poor stuff: it was all in a sense poor, but books and books, poor soul, she had to write. It was in a sense poor because it was mostly ambitious stuff, and, as the proverb says, "You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren." She was driven to fly, and gave her little wings too much to do, and her flights were apt to be mere little weak flutterings over the surface of the ground. ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Gellert legend, before it was localised, was used as a moral apologue in Wales is shown by the fact that it occurs among the Fables of Cattwg, which are all of that character. It was also utilised as a proverb: "Yr wy'n edivaru cymmaint a'r Gwr a laddodd ei Vilgi" ("I repent as much as the man who slew his greyhound"). The fable indeed, from this point of view, seems greatly to have attracted the Welsh mind, ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... Hadrianus Julius to the Adages of Erasmus, he remarks, under the head of Necessitatem edere, that a very familiar proverb was current among his countrymen,—"Necessitatem in virtutem commutare" (To make ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... critics is useful to us; he is a trainer: he does not let us loiter by the way. Whenever we think we have reached the goal, the pack hound us on. Get on! Onward! Upward! They are more likely to weary of running after me than I am of marching ahead of them. Remember the Arabian proverb: 'It is no use flogging sterile trees. Only those are stoned whose front is crowned with golden fruit....' Let us pity the artists who are spared. They will stay half-way, lazily sitting down. When they try to get up their legs will be so stiff that they will be ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... no other footmen who were so comfortably housed, he was sure. And Patch was in clover. Anthony reflected that he had much to be thankful for. A dinner of herbs was infinitely better than none at all. He was, you observe, unconsciously converting the proverb to his own use. Stalled oxen, with or without hatred, were not nowadays in his line. He had quite forgotten what they were like, and cared as little. Indeed, but for Valerie, his Ambition would have been dead. Even now it lay very sick. High stomachs are easily ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... have a proverb about waiting for some one who does not come. They call it deadly. Among the lapping shadows Lennox felt the force of it. But concluding that visitors had detained his guests, he dressed and went around a corner or two to the Athenaeum Club ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... extreme point 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 as the two St. Michael's Mounts); it was considered his especial function ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... They became a proverb for wandering, and a legend arose of strange, disconsolate men. Folks spoke of them at nightfall when the fire was warm and rain slipped down the eaves; and when the wind was high small children feared the ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... word of it. But it isn't too late to mend. That's an old proverb and a true one. It is quite in the line of possibility that I should get back to the position from which ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... O Bhishma, 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 preachest yet (of virtue); ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... sharp differences to Russia where social conditions were written in black and white with little shading, like a demonstration of the Chinese proverb, "Where one man lives in luxury, ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... the same name as the imperial villa. In 1880-82 a third and deeper network of galleries was excavated for the sake of extracting the pozzolana, the beds of which support the tufa and the catacombs excavated in it. Some damage was done to the tombs, but the Italian proverb Non tutto il male viene per nuocere proved true once more on this occasion. The excavation of the catacombs, which is generally a difficult and costly work, and sometimes impossible, when the owner of the ground above them objects to this form ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... are very fond of music and are constantly singing. They have a proverb: "He who sings thinks not of evil." Tomaseo thought their folk-songs richer than those of any other nation, ranging as they do over all manner of subjects. They are generally heroical or amorous in character, divided into short verses and sung in two ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... who remained on deck, over-joyed at the recapture, and anticipating an immediate return to his own country; by which it would appear that the "L'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose" of France, is quite as sure a proverb as the more homely "Many a slip between cup and lip" ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... guilty, and to promise to do her best by personal supervision; and Ellen set herself to devise further ways of reduction, not realising how hopeless it is to prescribe for another person's household difficulties. It is not in the nature of things that such advice should be palatable, and the proverb about the pinching of the shoe is ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "There's an Indian proverb that says, 'When the wind dies, there is no more music in the corn,'" she replied. "There is no more music in my heart, that ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... the English proverb, he that is shipped with the devil must sail with the devil; I was among them, and I managed myself as well as I could. My master had consented that I should assist the captain in the office, as above; but, as I understood afterwards that the captain allowed my master half a moidore a month ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... a charming girl as you deserves death ten times over; but be careful not to make an exposure! My dear, scandal always splashes mud over every one concerned, and there is a rather vulgar but exceedingly sensible Turkish proverb that says that the more garlic is crushed, the stronger becomes its odour. Believe me, you would not come off without a tinge of ridicule; certain mistakes always appear a little ridiculous, and it is useless to proclaim them to the universe. Thank Heaven! you are ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... year which begins this auspicious age. It shall be done without malice or favour. This is the truth. Ask if you like how I know it? To begin with, I am not bound to please you with my answer. Who will compel me? I know the same day made me free, which was the last day for him who made the proverb true—One must be born either a Pharaoh or a fool. If I choose to answer, I will say whatever trips off my tongue. Who has ever made the historian produce witness to swear for him? But if an authority must be produced, ask of the man who saw Drusilla translated to heaven: the same man ...
— Apocolocyntosis • Lucius Seneca
... man answered, gravely. "In my country they have a proverb about us. 'The Noirterres,' say they, 'have ever been bad players but good payers.' I will not be the first to be worse ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... we may say as the proverb has it: All good things are in threes. This is your case, Sigurd. Three times you have disturbed me, if I remember rightly; and now are you any the wiser than you ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... since it began to pay some attention to ideas. It has been said that a benevolent despotism is the best possible form of government. I do not believe that saying, because I believe another one to the effect that hell is paved with benevolence, which most people, the proverb being too deep for them, misinterpret as unfulfilled intentions. As if a benevolent despot might not by any error of judgment destroy his kingdom, and then say, like Romeo when he got his friend killed, 'I thought all for the best!' Excuse my rambling. I ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... traitors both, and began to understand, from one another's looks, that the real object of the ambassador was yet to be discussed. Marsilius accordingly assumed a more than usually cheerful and confidential aspect; and, taking his visitor by the hand, said, "You know the proverb, Mr. Ambassador—'At dawn, the mountain; afternoon, the fountain.' Different things at different hours. So here is ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... name, and to explain to them that not he, but those who will not use him, are to blame for his uselessness. The philosopher should not beg of mankind to be put in authority over them. The wise man should not seek the rich, as the proverb bids, but every man, whether rich or poor, must knock at the door of the physician when he has need of him. Now the pilot is the philosopher—he whom in the parable they call star-gazer, and the mutinous sailors are the mob of politicians by whom he is rendered useless. Not that these are the worst ...
— The Republic • Plato
... You have probably noted that at Waterloo Station, in London, no porter will ever bind himself to a definite statement concerning any train. It is only the inartistic who hold that black is black and white is white, unconditionally, irretrievably; and who have invented the proverb "He'd say black's white" to express the Sophist in excelsis. It must be true, as Ruskin contends, that not one man in fifteen thousand has ever observed anything, else how account for this wide-spread fallacy? The "wit of one," instead of crystallising ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... school of courtesy, of which woman is always the best practical instructor. "Without woman," says the Provencal proverb, "men were but ill-licked cubs." Philanthropy radiates from the home as from a centre. "To love the little platoon we belong to in society," said Burke "is the germ of all public affections." The ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... the willingness of everybody to help; subscriptions, large and small, came in readily at the very outset, and this part of the work never became arduous until the last few hundreds had to be raised. Most of us experienced the truth of the proverb Bis dat qui cito dat, but in a different sense from that which usually commends it, for many who gave quickly not only literally gave twice, but three times or more. Bazaars, concerts, and entertainments ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... translation of the English proverb, and perhaps the idea is not expressed in similar phrase in French," said Mr. Arbuckle; "but I think it will answer very well ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... is apparent in all men to differ among themselves, even concerning subjects which are simple and easily understood; while, on more difficult and complicated issues, this tendency is, of course, very much more pronounced. Hence, the well-known proverb: "Quot homines, tot sententiae"—there are as many opinions as there ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... of approaching destiny, and men have moulded the fact into a proverb. There is a world of truth in proverbs. They enclose, within a small space, even as a nut its kernel, a sum of human experience. In the case thou citest, may it not be that the man doth project a sphere of himself, or subtle influence, cognizable by spirit, albeit, the man be himself ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... and humility, even under the greatest provocation. The man who bet 400 Zuz that he would break Hillel's patience by silly and far-fetched questions lost his own temper at the consideration with which he was treated. And so the proverb became current, "Patience is worth 400 Zuz." And other tales are told of Hillel's considerate dealing with heathens who wished to embrace Judaism, in contrast to the harsh treatment meted out to them by his ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... than the well-favoured,—since, like workers of tapestry, they know not what they do,—gives the same appetite to all and to all the same mouth for pudding. So every beast finds a mate, and from the same fact comes the proverb, "There is no pot, however ugly, that does not one day find a cover." Now the lord of Valennes searched everywhere for nice little pots to cover, and often in addition to wild, he hunted tame animals; but this kind of game was ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... being no longer fit to appear on parade! I thought, at first, that they had been all wounded, but, on finding how the case stood, I could not help telling them that theirs was now the situation to verify the old proverb, "the uglier the ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... said, as she came in, in her usual active bustling way. "The grass never grew under her feet," as she was often pleased to observe. "Loitering and lagging make young bones grow prematurely old," she would say, coining a new proverb for the benefit of lazy Susie. "Never measure your footsteps when you are about other people's business," she would say to Laura, who hated to be hunted up from her employment for any errand. "He thinks of going over to Blackthorn Farm, as it is so fine; and the walk will do you good," continued ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... report the case of a friend—a distinguished lawyer at the English bar. I had the circumstances from himself, which lie in a very small compass; and, as my friend is known, to a proverb almost, for his literal accuracy in all statements of fact, there need be no fear of any mistake as to the main points of the case. He was one day engaged in pleading before the Commissioners of Bankruptcy; a court then, newly ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... back to primal lore that we seem to feel true passion at its best and purest, as somehow all truth of legend, proverb and fable has come from those misty ages of the earth. The drooping harmonies merge in the returning swing of the first solemn hymn,—a mere line that is broken by a new tender appeal, that, rising to ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... rise, are pressed upon more and more severely by objective things, by relations and claims from without, so that they become the more perplexed the lower the degree of their individual intelligence. This so far as regards War is the chief foundation of the truth of the French proverb:— ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... us call to mind the accepted proverb that "Competition is the life of trade," and this will make us see that, accompanying this stupendous trade, extending over, and into, every corner of the world, there will be stupendous competition, involving in a vast and complicated net, every ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... the queen would be with him in the morning, notumque furens quid femina possit: she was injured, she was revengeful, she was powerful. The poet had likewise before hinted that the people were naturally perfidious, for he gives their character in the queen, and makes a proverb of Punica fides many ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... community. It is desirable that the leader should spring from the community itself, acquainted with its needs and voicing its aspirations. But more communities get their leaders from outside and are often more willing to accept such a leader than if he came up out of their midst, for the proverb is often true that a prophet is without honor in ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... Princess Metternich, extremely clever and piquante, who invents the oddest toilettes, dances the oddest dances, and says the oddest things; the Marquise de Gallifet, whose past life is a romance, not altogether according to the French proverb (fitting school-girl reading), but who is very handsome, brilliant, merry, and audacious; and two others, the handsome and dashing wives of men high in the employment of the Emperor. These ladies spend enormous sums on their ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... "Every dog has his day, as I believe an English proverb says. It was yours yesterday. It is ours now. You must ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... lane that has no turning," as the proverb runs; and, to paraphrase it, it must be a long story which has no ending: so there must be an end ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... tyrants against their subjects and the members of their own families had produced a correlative order of crime in the people over whom they tyrannized. Cruelty was met by conspiracy. Tyrannicide became honorable; and the proverb, 'He who gives his own life can take a tyrant's,' had worked itself into popular language. At this point it may be well to glance at the opinions concerning public murder which prevailed in Italy. Machiavelli, in the Discorsi iii. 6, discusses the whole subject with his usual frigid ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... the appearance of Weber, an almost new era has commenced. In the works of this celebrated composer, the proverb has been realized—the German Professor has given to his notes the power of language: emotions are almost imbibed from the sounds as from a visible transaction, or a well-told description. If the country which presents the highest or most generally approved attainments in singing, be demanded, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... an old proverb of sea-fighting that "a stern chase is a long chase," and it is nearly as true on land, but the cavalry had pushed along with steady persistency, in a thoroughly business-like and scientific economy of time and horses. They were therefore in pretty good condition, ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... comes into my mind Concerning a proverb of old, Plain dealing's a jewel most rare, And more precious than silver or gold: And therefore with patience give ear, And listen to what here is penned, These verses were written on purpose The honest man's cause to defend. For this I will ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... very proper submission, yet with a twinkle in her eye, "we have a Scots proverb, 'He that will to Coupar, maun to Coupar'—which, being interpreted, means that if Louis wants to go to the Arlington, to the Arlington let him go—and for all ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... presented by her accusers to the Master of the old and new law, He did not have her stoned; that on the contrary He reproached them with their injustice, that he laughed at them by writing on the ground with his finger, that he quoted the old Hebraic proverb—"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her"; that then they all retired, the oldest fleeing first, because the older they were the more adulteries had ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... the old one, that I could not bring him away. But I forgot the old proverb, That hunger will tame a lion: For had I kept him three or four days without provisions, and then given him some water, with a little corn, he would have been as tame as a young kid. The other creatures I bound with strings together; but I had great difficulty ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... realized that all 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 to treat the exiles with all {113} freedom and liberality, and to ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... constitution they were as strong as Meux's dray-horses; and thus, after all, they may simply illustrate the old logical dictum ascribed to some medical man, that the reason why London children of the wealthier classes are noticeable even to a proverb for their robustness and bloom, is because none but those who are already vigorous to excess, and who start with advantages of health far beyond the average scale, have much chance of surviving that ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... people with whom they are not upon good terms. So vile is the whole law and practice relating to the testamentary disposal of property, and to such lengths have the abuses in this particular branch of it gone, that it has become a proverb among Spaniards to say that a wise man would prefer being a trustee on an estate, to being heir to it; and several people at Manilla are well known to be living on their gains from executorships, &c., having no other means ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... are universally cultivators of the earth, or breeders of cattle, depending on agricultural pursuits alone for subsistence. To use a common proverb of their own, "the earth is the Arab's portion." They are divided into small tribes or families, each separate tribe having a particular patriarch or head, by whose name they distinguish themselves, and each occupying its own separate portion of territory. They are scarcely ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... should see in that the permission of Our Lord. God helps who help themselves, the proverb says. But except I thought I had permission, I would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... through fear of Hercules, hid himself in a cave; and that on peeping out, and beholding Cerberus, he was changed into a stone by his fright. Suidas says, that in his time the stone was still to be seen, and that the story gave rise to a proverb.] ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... told the story, dialogue and all, like a machine. We did not doubt its correctness. The memory of Albert had passed into a proverb years before. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... doing the same thing in the same way. Scores of those who suffer from the depredations of this class of offenders, complain to me every day; but I can neither afford them redress, nor hold out any hope of it from any of the Oude authorities. It is a proverb, "that those who are sentenced to six years' imprisonment in Oude, are released in six months, and those who are sentenced to six months, are released in six years." Great numbers are released every year at Lucknow for thanksgivings, or ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... The French proverb 'Le style c'est l'homme,' is not altogether true as to the character of Cassiodorus. From his inflated and tawdry style we might have expected to find him an untrustworthy friend and an inefficient administrator. This, however, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... beauty of the French phrase s'orienter, and called on his young hearers to practise it in life. There was not a Yankee in his audience whose problem had not always been to find out what was "about east" and shape his course accordingly. The Germans have a striking proverb; Was die Gans gedacht, das der Schwan vollbracht; What the goose but thought, that the swan fullbrought; or, to de-Saxonize it a little, pace Mr. Bartlett, What the goose conceived, that the swan achieved;—and we cannot help thinking, that the life, invention, and vigor shown in our popular ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... desired to fire at the calf, and I missed. I will not make the excuse that I might for so doing; my only bag will distract Eliot when he hears it, a fox, on the death of which all present raised their hats. It made me laugh and think of the old proverb, "What's one man's meat...." I returned to Knigsberg at 9.30 and at 10 ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... German-speaking 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 ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... to me, so false to his written word," she said, and the letter was hidden away, and she passed into the dangerous stage of irresolution, where temptation is secretly dwelt upon. She hesitated, and, according to the proverb, the woman who does this is lost. Instead of indignantly casting temptation from her, she left her course open, to be decided somewhat by circumstances. She wilfully shut her eyes to the danger, and tried to believe, and did almost believe that her lover ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... no accuser," said Archie Maine to himself. "There's a splendid proverb. It can't mean a wigging this time. But if that pompous old pump, that buckled-up basha, lets the Major know that he caught poor old Pegg in my room to-day, I'm sure to get a lecture about making too free with the men instead of going ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... and tyme to examine what he had done in the hurry of publick busines, and to repent and amend our errors is in Seneca's Moralls the next best to the being innocent and not haveing committed thesse faults att all: the French proverb being of eternall truth that the shorter ane folly be it is the better; and tho' that physicall rule a privatione ad habitium non datur regressus be also true in politicks as in physicks that a man divested ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... himself very audibly. "He is rich, this picaro, O'Brien. But there is, also, a proverb—that no riches shall avail in the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins to put pen to paper in any way for the sake of gain. The best works of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for nothing or for very little. And here, too, that Spanish proverb holds good, which declares that honor and money are not to be found in the same purse—honora y provecho no caben en un saco. The reason why Literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is simply and solely that people write books to make money. A ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... a Persian proverb which asserts a devil slips in between two winds," said Christopher. "Perhaps that is what has ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... hemprespice finem, respice funemlook to your endlook to a rope's end.Welcome, welcome, my good old friend, to firm land, though I cannot say to warm land or to dry land. A cord for ever against fifty fathom of water, though not in the sense of the base proverba fico for the phrase,better sus. per funem, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... observed a party of laborers sinking a well. "What are you about?" he inquired. "Boring for water, sir," was the answer. "Water's a bore at any time," responded Hook; "besides, you're quite wrong; remember the old proverb,—'Let well alone.'" ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... her a little unawares, and suddenly she felt the hot, tell-tale blood mounting higher and higher up her face. She moved restlessly, impatiently, as if his gaze were intolerable, and then replied a trifle lamely, "You must have heard the English proverb, 'Lookers-on ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... subscribe, and yet continued to preach. Calany was one; and he was not molested. And if this could be done in the year in which the Toleration Act passed, we may easily believe that, at a later period, the law would not have been very strictly observed. New brooms, as the vulgar proverb tells us, sweep clean; and no statute is so rigidly enforced as a statute just made. But, Sir, so long ago as the year 1711, the provisions of the Toleration Act on this subject were modified. In that ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "A proverb is a stone flung into a pack of starlings. It may scare the most, but may hit one. By mine I referred to the ways of providence, under a figure. Destiny is always ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... Solon, Thales, and other sages, and is related so to have pleased his royal master, by the part he took in the conversations held with these philosophers, that he applied to him an expression which has since passed into a proverb, "mallon ho Phryx"—"The Phrygian has ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... in America has, however, been brought into undue prominence. It had such an ominous significance in Christian art, and one which chimed so well with the favorite proverb of the early missionaries—"the gods of the heathens are devils"—that wherever they saw a carving or picture of a serpent they at once recognized the sign manual of the Prince of Darkness, and inscribed the fact in their note-books ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... the Recollets, then the Jesuits, came into spiritual possession; and later on, episcopal rule succeeded to the influence of Loyola's disciples. The relative estimation in which these various orders of the Church were held being illustrated by a Canadian proverb: "Pour faire un Recollet, il faut une hachette, pour un Pretre un ciseau, mais pour un ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... will hold for all time. His answer to the question "What was your best sermon?" is: "The one I took the most pains with." His labour at the desk was the precise measure of his success in the pulpit. The French have a proverb, "Tout vaut ce qu'il coute." ("Everything is worth ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... mystery is thrusting a finger into my life and darkening it. I grow a very anxious and miserable man and I will tell you why, because you are understanding. You must not be angry if I now mention my wife in this affair. A mill and a woman are always in want of something, as our proverb says; but though we may know what a mill requires, who can guess a woman's whims? I am dazed with guessing wrong. I don't intend to be hard or cruel. It is not in me to be cruel to any woman. But how if your own woman ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... used to be a proverb among the Indians that "The white man is very uncertain." The following brief extract from the letter of a missionary among the Indians not only shows that the Indian is unstable, but illustrates the difficulty of fixing the Indians in a given locality ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 • Various
... pulled down; if built of wood, set on fire: its Church once burnt, the Village had lost the privilege of having one. Ministers and schoolmasters were driven away, cruelly maltreated. 'VEXA LUTHERANURN, DABIT THALERUM (Wring the Lutheran, you will find money in him),' became the current Proverb of the Poles in regard to Germans. A Protestant Starost of Gnesen, a Herr von UNRUH of the House of Birnbaum, one of the largest proprietors of the country, was condemned to die, and first to have his ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... him, would never decide from which he should feed and would die of starvation. Nothing of the kind is to be found in his works, but he may have said so in a lecture and his pupils remembering it have handed it down as a proverb. ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... the contest becomes war, the rule is reversed and each party is expected to take every possible advantage of his adversary, even to the extent of stratagem or deception. In fact, it has passed into a proverb that "all things are ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... to pass through his country. No one, we were assured, was allowed that liberty, or even to behold him, without something of the sort being presented. Having humbly explained our circumstances, and that he could not expect to "catch a humble cow by the horns"—a proverb similar to ours that "you can't draw milk out of a stone"—we were told to go home, and he would speak again to us next day. I could not avoid a hearty laugh at the cool impudence of the savage, and made the best of my way home in the still pouring rain. My men were rather nettled at this ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... your chickens before they be hatched," is a well-known proverb in English, and most people, if asked what was its origin, would probably appeal to La Fontaine's delightful fable, La Laitire et le Pot au Lait.[1] We all know Perrette, lightly stepping along from her village to the town, carrying the milk-pail on her head, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... exposing once and finally the secrets of Antichrist. 'From Rome' 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 to ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... Ecclesiastes contain treatises on moral philosophy, or rather, are didactic poems. The Proverb, which is a maxim of wisdom, greatly used by the ancients before the introduction of dissertation, is, as the name indicates, the prevalent form of the first of these books. In Ecclesiastes we have described the trials of a mind which has lost ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... public interests. She was apt indeed to have more than her share of civic business; her reputation for absolute reliability caused people to get into the habit of saying "Oh, go to Miss Beach!" on every occasion, and as she invariably proved the willing horse, she justified the proverb and received the ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... in Bernkastel, which, however untiring one may be as a sightseer, hardly warrant one as a writer to describe and re-describe their beauties. Kluesserath, however, we must mention, because its straggling figure has given rise to a local proverb—"As long as Kluesserath;" and Neumagen, because of the legend of Constantine, who is said to have seen the cross of victory in the heavens at this place, as well as at Sinzig on the Rhine, and, as the more famous legend tells us, at the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... answer, but checked himself. Never before had he appreciated to the full the depth and truth of the proverb relating to the frying-pan and the fire. To clear himself, he must mention his suspicions of Jimmy, and also his reasons for those suspicions. And to do that would mean revealing his past. It was Scylla ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... is the Abbe Dubois; a living proof of the folly of the French proverb, which says that Mercuries should not be made du bois. Never was there a Mercury equal to the Abbe,—but, do look at that old man to the left,—he is one of the most ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a proverb: "Cruel as a step-mother." I am disposed, however, to think that, while there may be marked exceptions, step-mothers are the most self-sacrificing beings in all the world. They come into the family scrutinized by the ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... is why the heart of youth goes out into play as into nothing else, as if in it man remembered a lost paradise. This is why, unlike gymnastics, play has as much soul as body, and also why it so makes for unity of body and soul that the proverb "Man is whole only when he plays" suggests that the purest plays are those that enlist both alike. To address the body predominantly strengthens unduly the fleshy elements, and to overemphasize the soul causes weakness and automatisms. Thus understood, play is the ideal type of exercise ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... instant as if Raff's recovery was becoming rather a doubtful benefit; her word was no longer sole law in the house. Fortunately the proverb "Humble wife is husband's boss" had taken deep root in her mind; even as ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... agent that brings us more undesirable conditions than fear. We should live in fear of nothing, nor will we when we come fully to know ourselves. An old French proverb runs ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... but muttered between her teeth, 'Our fathers' herds did not feed so near together that I should do you this service.' A small donation, however, amply reconciled this ancient handmaiden to the supposed degradation; and, as Edward proceeded to the hall, she gave him her blessing in the Gaelic proverb, 'May the open hand be filled ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... didn't ask what he meant by that, for he knew it was a proverb, a boy's proverb that was as good as any King Soloman ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... possessions. It was only after the collapse of the national polity that these ideals became transmuted and spiritualised. Those disasters, which at first seemed to indicate a hopeless estrangement between God and His people, were the means of a deeper reconciliation. We can trace the process, from the old proverb that "to see God is death," down to that remarkable passage in Jeremiah where the approaching advent, or rather restoration, of spiritual religion, is announced with all the solemnity due to so glorious a message. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... 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, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... golden rules of life; one relates to the mind, and the other to the pockets. The first is, If our thoughts get into a low, nervous, aguish condition, we should make them change the air; the second is comprised in the proverb, 'It is good to have two strings to one's bow.' Therefore, Pisistratus, I tell you what ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Maelstrom; one would be sure to get drawn in. And it is a dirty business. You know the proverb about ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... proverb, sir," said Bryan, smiling, "that there's no time like the present; besides it's only ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... upright or prostrate. Well, if he were in a ditch, he said to himself, he would not drown; the ditches were all as empty, dry, and burnt-up as four weeks' incessant drought and heat could make them. He turned back repeating that eminently consolatory proverb, Unkraut vergeht nicht, and walked quickly to his own gate; for it was late, and he had work to do, and he had wasted more time than he could afford with Klutz. A man on a horse coming from the opposite direction passed him. It was Dellwig, ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... men have set up their idols in their heart, and have put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face; should I be enquired of at all by them? I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb. And I will cut him off from the midst of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... taught us that in economics we can exercise our own wills, that they concern each individual man and woman as much as morals; that they are morals, and not abstract mathematics; that we have the same duty towards the country, towards mankind, that we have to our own families. The proverb, Waste not, want not, does not apply merely to each private income. We have accounts to settle not only with our bankers, but with the community. It will thrive or not according as we are thrifty or thriftless; and our thrift depends upon how we spend our income, ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... another roar, and bounded after Jack. Jack perceived his danger, and fear gave him wings; he not only flew over the orchard, but he flew over the hedge, which was about five feet high, just as the bull drove his head into it. "Look before you leap," is an old proverb. Had Jack done so, he would have done better; but as there were cogent reasons to be offered in extenuation of our philosopher, we shall say no more, but merely state that Jack, when he got on the other side of the hedge, found that ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "Are these suns more serene than ours, or the soil more fertile? Yet in our own Italy, saith the proverb, 'he who sows land, reaps more care than corn.' It were different," continued the father after a pause, and in a more irresolute tone, "if I had some independence, however small, to count on—nay, if among all my tribe of dainty relatives there ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... a rain, be sure it will soon clear up and remain clear for some time. The 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: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... dear reader, to return to William II. You will grant, I think, that since we have followed the interminable zig-zags of his wanderings throughout Europe, we are entitled to coin and utter a new proverb: "A rolling monarch gathers ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... Was a Man (page 60) has the same idea that we often hear expressed in the proverb "A hair from the same dog will ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... would be a pity if the frame distracted the attention which the picture itself deserves. Thus we each aspire to a plain frame, and when we desire to pour scorn on each other's drawings, we condemn them to a gilded frame. Some day perhaps "the gilt frame" will become a proverb among us, and we shall be surprised to find how many people show what they are really made of by demanding a ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... me to pass an opinion, Sir Walter. But the reverend gentleman, no doubt, understands such things. Only there's the Witch of Endor, if I may mention the creature, she fetched up more than she bargained for. And I remember a proverb as I heard in India, from a Hindoo. I've forgot the lingo now, but I remember the sense. They Hindoos say that if you knock long enough at a closed door, the devil will open it—excuse my mentioning such a thing; but Hindoos ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... not wash too deeply into your ears; (as the old German proverb puts it, "Never pick your ear with anything smaller than your elbow"). And if you don't, you will seldom have trouble with wax in the ear. Scarcely one case of deafness in a hundred is caused by wax. ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... extend to those alone, Whom common faith more strictly made their own; A sort of Doves[131] were housed too near their hall, Who cross the proverb, and abound with gall. Though some, 'tis true, are passively inclined, The greater part degenerate from their kind; 950 Voracious birds, that hotly bill and breed, And largely drink, because on salt they feed. Small ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... used the utmost precaution in her visits to the top landing. In spite of the pains they took to watch her movements, it was some days before they found the propitious moment. "All things come to those who wait," says the old proverb, however, and it proved true in ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... to supper at last, where this grave Sovereign still remained dumb. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he was wrong; but I think he followed the proverb, which says, Better hold your tongue than speak badly. At the end of the repast he felt indisposed. The Queen would have persuaded him to quit table; they bandied compliments a good while on the point; but at last ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... unfold their emerald wings: For he made verses wild and queer 680 On the strange creeds priests hold so dear, Because they bring them land and gold. Of devils and saints and all such gear, He made tales which whoso heard or read Would laugh till he were almost dead. 685 So this grew a proverb: 'Don't get old Till Lionel's "Banquet in Hell" you hear, And then you will laugh yourself young again.' So the priests hated him, and he Repaid their hate ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... soon," said Zora. "I want to get everything clear in my mind. I've had a great shock. I feel as if I had been beaten all over. For the first time I recognize the truth of the proverb about a woman, a dog, and a walnut tree. Why did you send ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... calamitous, noted for folly and hardness of heart and inclined to hatred and 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 ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... in the world is the kiwi. But it is not the most extraordinary bird seen by visitors to the Zoo, because they never see it. The kiwi buries itself asleep all day, and only comes out in the night to demolish an unpleasant and inconvenient proverb. The kiwi is the latest of all the birds, but catches the most worms. For this let us honour the kiwi, and hurl him in the face of the early risers. He stamps about the ground in the dark night, and the worm, being naturally a fool, as even the proverb demonstrates, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to point out a method of giving a general notion of the mechanical organs to our pupils, which shall be immediately obvious to their comprehension, and which may serve as a sure foundation for future improvement. We are told by a vulgar proverb, that though we believe what we see, we have yet a higher belief in what we feel. This adage is particularly applicable to mechanics. When a person perceives the effect of his own bodily exertions ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... incorrect; but his sense of his own ability urged him forward, and his indefatigable pertinacity kept him at his strange task throughout the whole of his life. He filled volumes, and the contents of those volumes afford probably the most complete illustration in literature of the very trite proverb—Poeta nascitur, non fit. The spectacle of that heavy German Muse, with her feet crammed into pointed slippers, executing, with incredible conscientiousness, now the stately measure of a Versailles minuet, and now the spritely steps of a Parisian jig, would ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... artist; his still youngish face has grown yellow, and his hair scanty; he now neither sings nor sketches, but applies himself in secret to literature; he has written a comedy, in the style of a "proverb," and as nowadays all writers have to draw a portrait of some one or something, he has drawn in it the portrait of a coquette, and he reads it privately to two or three ladies who look kindly upon him. He has, however, not entered upon matrimony, though many excellent opportunities ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... country, yet the conquest of the enchanting kingdom of Cashmere, which has never yet been subdued by monarchs of the age, which for natural strength and inaccessibility is unrivalled, and which, for beauty and pleasantness, is a proverb among the most sagacious beholders, became secretly an object of my wishes, BECAUSE I received constantly accounts of the tyranny of the rulers of that region. Accordingly, in a very short time, my brave warriors annexed ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... public confidence more surely than any other in the country. For James J. Hill has kept faith in the smallest detail with every man who ever entrusted a dollar to his hands. The loyalty of the employes of the Great Northern has passed into a proverb, "Once a Hill man, always a Hill man," and it is true. He knows his road as few other men do. Before he bought the St. Paul & Pacific, he traveled over the route in an ox-cart, studying not only the road, but the people along the way—there weren't many—and the resources of the country. ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... 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
... "there's a proverb, ain't there, about lettin' to-morrow take care of itself? As for trouble—well, I did think I'd had trouble enough in my life to last me through, but I cal'late I've got another guess. Anyhow, don't you fret. I did just the right thing, and I'm glad I did it. If it was only me I wouldn't fret, ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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 was ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... Ozone is oxygen in a state of great intensity; and oxygen is a general acidifier of many organic substances. Milk may be prevented from becoming sour by boiling it, or bringing it nearly to boiling point, for, as the old proverb says, "Milk boiled is milk spoiled." Heating the milk ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Excellent health, the happiest temper, and a naturally well-tuned soul, gave a beautiful and harmonious expression to her whole being. Whatever she did, she did well, and with grace; and whatever she wore became her; it was a kind of proverb in the family, that if Eva were to put a black cat on her head ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... there would be a rule about such things, some acknowledged method; a proverb, for instance; it ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... English language—The Levant Herald—and there are generally a number of Greek and a few French papers rising and falling, struggling up and falling again. Newspapers are not popular with the Sultan's Government. They do not understand journalism. The proverb says, "The unknown is always great." To the court, the newspaper is a mysterious and rascally institution. They know what a pestilence is, because they have one occasionally that thins the people out at the rate of two thousand a day, and they regard a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... polymorphotata de ta en taei libyaei; kai legetai de tis paroimia, hoti aei pherei ti libyae kainon;] i.e. That generally the Beasts are wilder in Asia, stronger in Europe, and of greater variety of shapes in Africa; for as the Proverb saith, Africa always produces something new. Pliny[B] indeed ascribes it to the Heat of the Climate, Animalium, Hominumque effigies monstriferas, circa extremitates ejus gigni, minime mirum, artifici ad formanda Corpora, effigiesque caelandas mobilitate ignea. ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... waste of time. But what he cannot endure, and what impresses him as a loss of time is a tension of the nerves, a moment of self-control, an interval of waiting without an immediate result There is, indeed, a popular Italian proverb: aspettare e non venire e una cosa da morire (to wait for what does not come is a killing business). These impatient persons are like those busybodies who always make off when there is really ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... the Greek proverb, are they who bear the mystic reed, but few are the true bacchanals. Many, in the present day, are they who make an outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few, methinks, are her real worshippers. "We are fighting for Freedom" is a cry which rises from the most unexpected quarters; and, though ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... Some set it down to the absence of religious teaching in the State schools, but its real point and origin seems rather to lie in the absence of parental authority at home and the unpopularity of the old proverb: 'Spare the rod ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... Alderman has dulled him into prudence, and the love of feasting; but hitherto he has done nothing but go to City banquets and sermons, and sit at Guildhall as a sober magistrate. With an inversion of the proverb, "Si ex quovis Mercurio fit lignum!" What do you Italians think of Harlequin Potesta?[1] In truth, his party is crumbled away strangely. Lord Chatham has talked on the Middlesex election till nobody will answer him; and Mr. Burke ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... delicate humor and a sincere faith in the beautiful side of human nature, Mr. Robinson has created for himself a host of enthusiastic admirers. In his new book he chooses a theme, suggested perhaps by the old proverb quoted above ("Pilpay's Fables"). His setting is a Quaker village, his theme the conflict between grave Quaker ideals and the strength and hot blood of impulsive ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... observed, is just as capable of vedette duty, as well able, say, to scan the distant horizon, as a large; and by the same token men with no great confidence in themselves or in their horses are not ill-qualified to guard, or withdraw within shelter (8) the property of friends; since fear, as the proverb has it, makes a shrewd watchman. The proposal, therefore, to select from these a corps of observation will most likely prove true strategy. But what then of the residue not needed for outpost duty? If any one imagines he has got an armament, he will find ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... purphoron}: the {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 ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... and 'the humblest duties on herself doth lay.' We need not pause to point out that such an ideal is dead against the fashionable maxims of this generation. Personal ambition is glorified as an element in progress, and to a world which believes in such a proverb as 'devil take the hindmost,' these two exhortations can only seem fanatical absurdity. And yet, perhaps, if we fairly take into account how the seeking after personal advancement and conspicuous work festers the soul, and how the flower of heart's-ease grows, as Bunyan's shepherd-boy found out, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... just the sort of Deity that some of your profession have wanted them to take up with. There was a student of mine wrote a dissertation on the Natural Theology of Health and Disease, and took that old lying proverb for his motto. He knew a good deal more about books than ever I did, and had studied in other countries. I'll tell you what he said about it. He said the old Heathen Doctor, Galen, praised God for his handiwork in the human body, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... let us beat woman, even with a rose, as the Arab proverb says. She is a sick child, foolishly spoiled, who requires only to be cured and reformed by another education. The Comtesse was not like this. Skilful and intelligent, she knew what talking meant, and how to read in wise men's eyes and between ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... learn to think a little, Anne, that's what. The proverb you need to go by is 'Look before you leap'—especially ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Florence, blunted the moral sense, while it stimulated the intellectual activity of the English travellers, and too often communicated a fatal shock to their principles. Inglese Italianato e un diavolo incarnato passed into a proverb: we find it on the lips of Parker, of Howell, of Sidney, of Greene, and of Ascham; while Italy itself was styled by severe moralists the court of Circe. In James Howell's 'Instructions for forreine travell' we find this pregnant sentence: 'And being now in Italy, that great limbique of working ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... . . ." There is so much in that wicked old French proverb! Had Frank known more about a woman's mind—had he, that is, been forty-two instead of twenty-two—he would at once have been sure of his game, and have felt that Mary's silence told him all he wished to know. But then, had he been forty-two instead of twenty-two, he ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... desperate. He spoke, when I saw him, of an adventure upon India (whither I am myself in some hope of accompanying my illustrious countryman, Mr. Lally); but for this he would require (as I understood) more money than was readily at his command. You may have heard a military proverb: that it is a good thing to make a bridge of gold to a flying enemy? I trust you will take my meaning, and I subscribe myself, with proper respects to my Lord Durrisdeer, to his son, and to the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and again addressing Phoebe, said, 'If it were you, now, or any one with whom he was not in sport, it would be a serious matter. The fellow got himself expelled from Harrow, then was the proverb of even a German university, ran through his means before he was five-and-twenty, is as much at home in the Queen's Bench as I am in this study, has been outlawed, lived on rouge et noir at Baden till he got whitewashed when his mother died, and since that has lived ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proverb says that Providence protects children and idiots. This is really true. I know it because I have tested it. It did not protect George through the most of his campaign, but it saved him in his last inning, and the veracity ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... Median Wall, there remain two outward and visible signs of the older civilisation that flourished in happier times. There are, at frequent intervals, low flat mounds composed of old sunbaked bricks the sites of ancient cities; so numerous are these that they seem to justify the Chaldean proverb, boasting of the prosperity of the people, that a cock may spring from house to house without lighting on the ground from Babylon to the sea. The other are the walls of the canals that served to irrigate the country between the two rivers. These canals ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... puzzle with the simplest possible conditions. Place the point of your pencil on a letter in one of the cells of the honeycomb, and trace out a very familiar proverb by passing always from a cell to one that is contiguous to it. If you take the right route you will have visited every cell once, and only once. The puzzle is ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... the cloth, when Chodowiecki waved him back. "Do not look at it," said he, quickly; "I dislike to appear as a mechanic before you, as I wish that you should honor only the artist. We poor toilers are badly off, as the old proverb is ever proving true with us, 'Art goes for bread.' We must be mechanics the chief part of our lives, in order to have a few hours free, in which we are allowed to be artists. I have to illustrate the most miserable works with my engravings, to ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... when the children were allowed to amuse themselves outside of the building, Edwin soon discovered that "a soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger" (Prov. 15:1). God must surely have taught Edwin the meaning of this proverb; for the old lady did not mention it in any of her talks, and there was no one else in that wretched place ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... acquaintance with the subject, you will find that the actual practice of the exercises themselves will give you a much clearer knowledge than any amount of theoretical teaching, for as the old Hindu proverb says, "He who tastes a grain of mustard seed knows more of its flavor than he who sees an elephant ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka |
