"Proverb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... return. On this point, G.K. attacked two popular sayings. One was "You can't put the clock back"; but, he said, you can and you do constantly. The clock is a piece of mechanism which can be adjusted by the human finger. "There is another proverb: 'As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it'; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... received by all, whithersoever he came, with much respect. To Peterborough he came; and there the Abbot Henry promised him that he would procure him the minster of Peterborough, that it might be subject to Clugny. But it is said in the proverb, "The hedge abideth, that acres divideth." May God Almighty frustrate evil designs. Soon after this, went the Abbot of Clugny home to his country. This year was Angus slain by the army of the Scots, and there was a great multitude slain with him. There ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... trite proverb, and a sadly worn truth, exemplified over and over again at all times and seasons, and in all places of the earth, that the course of true love never ran smooth; and alas! notwithstanding all the pleasant preparations being made for them, these two poor lovers ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... There is an old proverb that tells us, "Idleness is the devil's pillow"; and well may it be so esteemed, for no head ever rested long upon it, but the lips of the evil spirit were at its ear, breathing falsehood and temptation. The industrious man is seldom found guilty of a crime; for he has no time ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... the acquaintance of the copyist Weber, and succumbed to the charms of his daughter, Aloysia. But Leopold Mozart, wisely playing the role of stern father, soon sped the susceptible youth on his way to the French capital. It is a French proverb that tells us,— ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... several months, but continue to work my best—if only to prove to the "kindly critic" and the idlers that it is very much to be regretted that I should have taken it into my head to turn composer!—This recalls the proverb, "On devient cuisinier, mais on ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... The proverb, "The beginning is half the battle," applies in a multitude of ways. In the first instant of a greeting between two people, the ground upon which they meet should be indicated. Cordiality, reserve, distrust, confidence, caution, ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... be to the purpose or not, tis no great matter: 'tis a common proverb in Italy, that he knows not Venus in her perfect sweetness who has never lain with a lame mistress. Fortune, or some particular incident, long ago put this saying into the mouths of the people; and the same is said of men as well as of women; for the queen ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... in his dealings with Laban; and a lack of loyalty to the exact truth, some of their own clergy say, had become almost a national characteristic. "The bond-slave of my mere word I will never be" has often been quoted as a Boer proverb; and those that had lived long in the land assured me that proverb and ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... time when it is a year of domestic dissension and repentance. And it is a very true proverb, 'Marry in haste and repent at leisure.' No! If at the end of the year the young people continue of the same mind, and ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Rheims is a proverb in Gothic Christian art. One speaks of the "nave of Amiens, the bell towers of Chartres, the facade of Rheims." A month before the coronation of Charles X a swarm of masons, perched on ladders and clinging to knotted ropes, ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... "protract their causes many years, persuading them their title is good, till their patrimonies be consumed, and that they have spent more in seeking than the thing is worth, or they shall get by the recovery." So that he that goes to law, as the proverb is, [516]holds a wolf by the ears, or as a sheep in a storm runs for shelter to a brier, if he prosecute his cause he is consumed, if he surcease his suit he loseth all; [517]what difference? They had wont heretofore, saith Austin, to end matters, per communes arbitros; and so in Switzerland ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... have a kingdom ruined in preserving it for God and the king by war, than to have it kept entire without war, to the profit of the devil and of his followers. He was also reported on another occasion to have reminded her of the Spanish proverb—that the head of one salmon is worth those of a hundred frogs. The hint, if it were really given, was certainly destined to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... head that wears a crown, says the proverb, and it was true in the case of Servius, for he could never forget that the people had not voted in his favor. For this reason he divided among them the lands that he had taken from the enemies ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... think of was that the guide on my left had eaten too much garlic and that the guide on my right had not eaten enough. So in self-defense I went away and ate a few strands of garlic myself; for I had learned the great lesson of the proverb: ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... parables ought to be regarded as parables or not, but the number is usually estimated at about thirty, of which eighteen are peculiar to Luke. In John there are no parables, strictly so called, and St. John never uses the word "parable." But he uses the word paroimia, or "proverb," and records several proverbial sayings of our Lord which are rather like parables (John iv. 34; x. i-3; xii. ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... business and, when it comes, the most important part of the Nation's business. A Nation that for many years neglects this branch of its affairs is liable to suffer to any extent. The proverb, "a stitch in time saves nine," gives a very fair idea of the proportion between the amount of effort required in a properly-prepared and well-conducted war, and the amount required when there has been ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson
... dimensions are so immensely great that we stop in astonishment. Now our eyes lose themselves in sky-high vaulting, glittering with colour, and now we admire the columns and their capitals, pictures in mosaic or monuments in marble. Rome was not built in a day, says the proverb, and St. Peter's Church alone was the work of 120 years and twenty Popes. Italy's foremost artists, including Raphael and Michael Angelo, put the best of their energies into the building of this temple, where is the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... are poor; you deserve it! Remember the old proverb which says: 'Stolen money never ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... in sexual reproduction: it is a matter of perfectly common experience, that the tendency on the part of the offspring always is, speaking broadly, to reproduce the form of the parents. The proverb has it that the thistle does not bring forth grapes; so, among ourselves, there is always a likeness, more or less marked and distinct, between children and their parents. That is a matter of familiar and ordinary observation. We notice the same thing occurring ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley
... to the water mill, through all the livelong day, As the clicking of the wheels wears hour by hour away; How languidly the autumn wind does stir the withered leaves As in the fields the reapers sing, while binding up their sheaves! A solemn proverb strikes my mind, and as a spell is cast, "The mill will never grind again with water that ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... I suspect, the pirate had calculated. He well knew the force of the French proverb, "It is but the first step to crime which is difficult." He wished me to take that first step, being assured that I should ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... with the coarseness of their constituents. Just at the period of Hogarth's painting, Walpole, when speaking of the feeling excited by a Westminster election, has occasion to use this pleasing 'new fashionable proverb'—'We spit in his hat on Thursday, and wiped it off on Friday.' It owed its origin to a feat performed by Lord Cobham at an assembly given at his own house. For a bet of a guinea he came behind Lord Hervey, who was talking to some ladies, and made use of his hat as a spittoon. The point of the ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... don't be anxious; I'll answer for it that I can kill anybody as well as any doctor in the town. The proverb usually is, "after death comes the doctor," but you will see that if I have anything to do with it, it will be, "after the doctor comes death!" But now, while I think of it, it must be difficult to play the doctor; and ...
— The Flying Doctor - (Le Medecin Volant) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... Machiavelli quotes a proverb, "War makes thieves and peace has them hanged" The Spaniards in Mexico, which has been in rebellion for forty years, are more or less thieves. They want to continue to ply the trade. Civil authority exists no longer with them, and they would look on obedience ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... of his own subjects, and that they should so far emancipate themselves as to feel a preference for younger and more attractive men when they had been honoured by his notice. The dissolute monarch did not pause to reflect that with women the national proverb, il n'y a que le premier pas qui coute, is but too often realized, and that he was, in fact, the architect of his ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the Court, and walked up the Strada di Toledo—the finest and liveliest street in the world, I believe—crowded with people. An Italian proverb says, 'Quando Dio onnipotente e tristo, prende una finestra nella Toledo.' Then to the Museum, of which everything was shut but the library and the papyri. The former contains 180,000 volumes, but is deficient in modern (particularly ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... evidently 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
... to whom you have sworn fidelity; obey your superiors; do not seek for favours; do not struggle after active service, but do not refuse it either, and remember the proverb, 'Take care of your coat while it is new, and of your honour while ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... our hero developed into one of the most admired braves of his community. No one was more successful in battle, and it became almost a proverb that when Why-Why went on the war-path there was certain to be meat enough and to spare, even for the women. Why-Why, though a Radical, was so far from perfect that he invariably complied with the usages of his time when they seemed rational and useful. If a little ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... said Aunt Isobel. "Child, whilst we are speaking of it—for the first and the last time—let it be a warning for you to illustrate a very homely proverb: 'Don't cut off your nose to spite your own face.' Ill-tempered people are always doing it, and I did it to my life-long loss. I was angry with him, and like Jonah I said to myself, 'I do well to be angry.' And though I would die twenty deaths harder than the death ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... turn' was. Matthew answered, 'I know well enough, but, as the proverb goes, "what lies not in my way breaks ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... Latin proverb, something about tots and sentences, which embodies that idea," suggested Elisabeth, with ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... which destroyed many hundreds of people. In this distress, the King's son-in-law resolved to seek help once more from the Eastern magician, to whom he at once travelled through the air like a bird by the help of the ring. But there is a proverb which says that ill-gotten gains never prosper, and the Prince found that the stolen ring brought him ill-luck after all. The Witch-maiden had never rested night nor day until she had found out where the ring was. As soon as she had discovered by means of magical arts that the ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... or the like solemn sort of ass, can offer us a succinct proverb by way of advice, and not burst out blushing in our faces. We grant them one and all and for all that they are worth; it is something above and beyond that we desire. Christ was in general a great enemy to such a way of teaching; we rarely find Him meddling ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is a modern maxim which can be translated, "He who learns to read and write rides in a carriage and pair." In English there is a similar proverb, "Knowledge is power." It is an offer of a prospective bribe to the student, a promise of an ulterior reward which is more important than knowledge itself. Temptations, held before us as inducements ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... for a man to come from his own land and pretend to me that he had no mind for the beautiful women and the good women he had seen there. No; it would not deceive me, that; it would not give me any pleasure. We have a proverb in the Highlands, that Annapla will often be saying, that the rook thinks the pigeon hen would be bonny if her wings were black; and that is a seanfhacal—that is an ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... rascals where they can show but one honest merchant. One of the honestest among men, white or black, red or yellow, is a Mohammedan Hindi called Tarya Topan. Among the Europeans at Zanzibar, he has become a proverb for honesty, and strict business integrity. He is enormously wealthy, owns several ships and dhows, and is a prominent man in the councils of Seyd Burghash. Tarya has many children, two or three of whom are grown-up sons, whom he has reared up even as he is ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... addressed her, Bice—that is to say, according to English pronunciation, Beeshee (you would probably call it Beetchee if you learned to speak Italian in England, but the Contessa had the Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth, according to the proverb), which, as everybody knows, is the contraction of Beatrice. She was called Miss Beachey in the household, a name which was received—by the servants at least—as a quite proper and natural name; a great deal more sensible than Forno-Populo. Her position, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... having been made use of even by the Romans; and not many years back a bush of ivy, or a bunch of grapes, was used for the purpose; nay, to the present day they may be met with in many places. The Bush is perhaps one of the most ancient of public-house signs, which gave rise to the well-known proverb, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... as they always did at his own jokes—muttered the old proverb about choosing a wife by candle-light; but before any one could hear him a beacon shone out across the sea from some reef behind the main island I had noticed, and all eyes were turned anxiously to that. It was a queer place, truly, to set up a light, and ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... to like," is a proverb that's nothin' more than trash; And many a time I've seen it all pulverized to smash. For folks in no way sim'lar, I've noticed ag'in and ag'in, Will often take to each other, and ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... proverb arose—'Better a live dog than a dead lion,' to answer him. It seemed an ignominy to be dead. It meant, to be overlooked, even by the smallest creature of God's earth. Surely that was a ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... recent for Fienus, in 1608, said that most of the children born in adultery have a greater resemblance to the legal than to the real father'—an observation that was confirmed by the philosopher Vanini and by the naturalist Ambrosini. From these observations comes the proverb: 'Filium ex adultera excusare matrem a culpa.' Osiander has noted telegony in relation to moral qualities of children by a second marriage. Harvey said that it has long been known that the children by a second ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... rising star. Even if you go to the depth of a desert, to the jungles of an Indian archipelago, to the woods at Caffraria, to the desert plains of North America, or to the Cordilleras, you will not escape from the miserable spectacles of human hypocrisy. The Turks have a proverb which says, 'Cure the hand you cannot spare.' Now we can add to this maxim, 'Cure the hand which can serve you, satisfy your pride, avarice and egotism.' Young and happy when you first entered on life, dear Ireneus, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... answer with great calmness, not seeming to understand the reason of complaint, and that was all that passed but my Lord did presently pack his lady into the country in Derbyshire, near the Peake; which is become a proverb at Court, to send a man's wife to the Devil's arse a' Peake, when she vexes him. This noon I did find out Mr. Dixon at Whitehall, and discoursed with him about Mrs. Wheatly's daughter for a wife for my brother Tom, and have committed it to him to enquire the pleasure ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... lead to the next," said Shirley, and that sounded like a proverb of Jane's. (Queer how much Jane and Shirley were alike fundamentally.) "Write to Ted and we'll have one 'whale' of a ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... conventionally conceived, is a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable, that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven, though plenty of people have described a day at the seaside; and that the genuine popular verdict on it is expressed in the proverb "Heaven for holiness and Hell for company." Second, I point out that the wretched people who have independent incomes and no useful occupation, do the most amazingly disagreeable and dangerous things to make themselves tired and hungry ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... or Naevius. Tyrrell would write the proverb in extremo sero sapiunt, "'tis too late to be wise at the last." There was a proverb, sero parsimonia in fundo, something like this, Sen. Ep. i. 5, from the Greek (Hes. Op. 369), [Greek: deile ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... extremely uncertain. The Swiss seem in a great measure to have lost their renown for patriotism, by their slavish submissions to foreign yokes during the late war, and by the apathy with which they allow their rights to be trampled on at this day by a tyrannical aristocracy at home. There is now a proverb of "Point d'argent, point de Suisse!"—a melancholy reflection for a land where Tell drew his unerring shaft in the cause of freedom—where, so late as 1798, a patriot of the canton of Schwyz concluded an address with these words:—"The dew of the mountain may still moisten its verdure—the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... to slip into a succinct formula. If he could have adequately said his say in a single proverb, it is to be presumed he would not have put himself to the trouble of writing several volumes. It was his programme to state as much as he could of the world with all its contradictions, and leave the upshot with God who planned it. What he has made of the world and the world's meanings is to be ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... egg. There is, first, its exquisite fragility of material, strong only by the mathematical precision of that form so daintily moulded. There is its absolute purity from external stain, since that thin barrier remains impassable until the whole is in ruins,—a purity recognized in the household proverb of "An apple, an egg, and a nut." Then, its range of tints, so varied, so subdued, and so beautiful,—whether of pure white, like the Martin's, or pure green, like the Robin's, or dotted and mottled into the loveliest of browns, like the Red Thrush's, or aqua-marine, with stains ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... tatters, upon what is now the Piazza Nuova, where hundreds of children play all day long, he was greeted with a great shout, "Pazzo, Pazzo!" (A madman! a madman!) "Un pazzo ne fa cento" (One madman makes a hundred more), says the proverb, but one must have seen the delirious excitement of the street children of Italy at the sight of a madman to gain an idea how true it is. The moment the magic cry resounds they rush into the street with frightful din, and while their parents look on ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... to Francis Turl, the fortunate, after its cold treatment of Murray Davenport, the unlucky," said Turl, smiling. "It shall be as you say, sweetheart. There can be no doubt about my good fortune. It puts even the old proverb out. With me it is lucky in love as well ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... puzzled by the phrase, "silkworm-moth eyebrow," in an old Japanese, or rather Chinese proverb:—The silkworm-moth eyebrow of a woman is the axe that cuts down the wisdom of man. So I went to my friend Niimi, who keeps silkworms, to ask for ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... 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 by beginning well, and going onward. The good, practical ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... spot. I am. And a lawyer on the spot," said Mr. Wilkins, who endeavoured to make his conversation when he talked to Lady Caroline light, aware that one must be light with young ladies, "is worth two in—we won't be ordinary and complete the proverb, ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... all Tully's Books of Philosophy seem to breathe out something divine; yet that Treatise of Old Age, that he wrote in old Age, seems to me to be according to the Greek Proverb; the Song of the dying Swan. I was reading it to Day, and these Words pleasing me above the rest, I got 'em by Heart: Should it please God to give me a Grant to begin my Life again from my very Cradle, and once more to run over the Course of my Years I have lived, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... everything; his vehemence and vituperation were seasoned with a kind of wit, and he made himself, if not a power, at least an important factor in the House of Commons. Indeed, it passed into a kind of proverb at St. Stephen's that there were three parties in the State—the Ministry, the Opposition, and Lord George Gordon. Parliament had seen before, and has seen since, many a politician fighting thus like Hal o' the Wynd for his own hand, but no one so influential for a ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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 with different engines, and when he can compare in a ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... sympathy between my son's wife and me; but we live together as politely as possible. Her singular conduct shall never prevent me from keeping that promise which I made to the late King in his last moments. He gave some good Christian exhortations to Madame d'Orleans; but, as the proverb says, it is useless to preach to those who have no heart ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... is as good as a mile, says the time-honoured proverb; and it is not for us modern mortals to question ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... too bad! I was so sure of it, too. I told him about our plans—about our promise, indeed, and how I had counted on him, and all he said was: 'Don't you know the old proverb, sis: "Never count your chickens before they are hatched;" or, a more elegant phrasing of it, "Never eat your fish till you catch him?" Now, I'm not caught yet; someway the right sort of bait hasn't reached me yet.' I was never so disappointed in my life! Didn't ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... Del agua mansa nos libre Dios: From still (flowing) water may heaven deliver us. The entire proverb is: Del agua mansa me libre Dios, que de la recia (or brava) me guardar yo. Compare the English: Still ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... of Latin and Greek quotations from the heathens and fathers, those thunderbolts of scholastic warfare, dwindled into mere pop-gun weapons before the sword of the Spirit, which puts all such rabble to utter rout. Never was the homely proverb of Cobbler Howe more fully exemplified, than in this triumphant answer to the subtilities of a man deeply schooled in all human acquirements, by an unlettered mechanic, whose knowledge was drawn from one book, the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... man in his humour] To claw is to flatter. So the pope's claw-backs, in bishop Jewel, are the pope's flatterers. The sense is the same in the proverb, Mulus ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... was not favorably impressed at first, but a moment's reflection convinced him that this was one of the situations in which the proverb, "In union there is strength," did not hold good. Two persons trying together to make their way out of the neighborhood without drawing suspicion would be in more danger than one. ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... of Warburton.] What has 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
... Russians are brave, too, as they showed at the end of the day. I fancy you have a scotch proverb to the effect that 'fou folk come to no harm.' I think that is more applicable in the ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... old Latin proverb we used to get off at college? I was punk in Latin, but I never forgot that—'Harus pex ad harus picem' when one priest meets another it's to smile! The lawyers are the high priests of the modern world. Only the women support ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... claim?" And running his eye over the missive and breaking his reading with interjection: "Surely! the Germans are so great and powerful, that it is hardly credible—But let us not forget the old proverb: 'The finest county is Flanders; the finest duchy, Milan; the finest kingdom, France.' Is it not so, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... sir, did belong to me: This the old proverb now complete doth make, That Lincoln should be hanged ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... on the Coast they have an old proverb in the Negro-English jargon which says, 'Softly, softly catchee monkey.' Let us proceed cautiously, bear our trials with patience, seek not to incense these brutal Arabs against us, and we may yet tread the path that leads into my mother's kingdom. Then, within a week, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... business. It was as though a lubricant had dried up. The cogs and wheels worked slowly and with dislocations. Things were a little out of joint. Wall Street stocks were down. In a word, "times were bad." Thus for three years. It became a proverb on the Chicago Board of Trade that the quickest way to make money was to sell wheat short. One could with almost absolute certainty be sure of buying cheaper than one had sold. And that peculiar, indefinite thing known—among ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... existence of definite standards of accuracy. Thomas Chaloner, another of the friends of Cheke, translating Erasmus's Praise of Folly for "mean men of baser wits and condition," chooses "to be counted a scant true interpreter." "I have not pained myself," he says, "to render word for word, nor proverb for proverb ... which may be thought by some cunning translators a deadly sin."[357] To the author of the Menechmi the word "translation" has a distinct connotation. The printer of the work has found him "very loath and unwilling to hazard this to the curious view of envious ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... interest stepped in to divert her thoughts. Madame d'Avrigny was getting up her annual private theatricals, and wanted Jacqueline to take the principal part in the play, saying that she ought to put her lessons in elocution to some use. The piece chosen was to illustrate a proverb, and was entirely new. It was as unexceptionable as it was amusing; the most severe critic could have found no fault with its morality or with its moral, which turned on the eagerness displayed by young girls ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... Spanish proverb, "Never rub your eyes but with your elbows," I should have saved myself a lot of needless pain, for they became quite inflamed. I bathed them first in tepid water and afterwards in cold, and then sat down in the bottom of the boat with ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... a loyal people, and have given abundant proof of our loyalty; but it is not an unalterable principle. There is an old Spanish proverb—"The sweetest wine makes the sourest vinegar," and so it will be ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... "As blind as the 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
... after a space of thought: "Not ineptly is it written: 'When the leading carriage is upset the next one is more careful,' and Ming-shu has taken the proverb to his heart. To counteract his detestable plot will not be easy, but it should not be beyond our united power, backed by a reasonable activity on the part of ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... of Adele Hugo. Sainte-Beuve represents a curious type, which is far more common in France and Italy than in the countries of the north. Human nature is not very different in cultivated circles anywhere. Man loves, and seeks to win the object of his love; or, as the old English proverb has it: ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... travelled in vain, and some very sumptuous works have been published to no purpose! As we proceed, we find the author observing that "Athens is now the most polished city of Greece," when we believe it to be the most barbarous, even to a proverb— ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to those who contemplate building, to apply forthwith to such as are masters of their trade for all the information they require on the various subjects connected with it. One who sets out to be his own architect, builder, and painter, is akin to the lawyer in the proverb, who has a fool for his client, when pleading his own case, and quite as apt to have quack in them all. Hints, general outlines, and oftentimes matters of detail in interior convenience, and many other minor affairs may be given by the proprietor, when he is neither a professional ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... Indians used to bring them down in boats, alive, on their backs, with their legs tied behind them; so that they had the most comical look of distress it is possible to imagine. The Spanish Indians have a proverb referring to an iguana so bound, the purport of which has slipped from my memory, but which shows the habit to be an old one. Their eggs are highly prized, and their captors have a cruel habit of extracting these delicacies from them while alive, and roughly sewing up the wound, which ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... exercise of your bodily powers and faculties. But friendship combines the largest number of utilities. Wherever you turn, it is at hand. No place shuts it out. It is never unseasonable, never annoying. Thus, as the proverb says, "You cannot put water or fire to more uses than friendship serves." I am not now speaking of the common and moderate type of friendship, which yet yields both pleasure and profit, but, of true and perfect friendship, like that which existed in the few instances ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... perceptible gesture, she put her finger on her lips and said quietly, "They are waiting for you, Cousin Ik." Then she added, with a smile, "Somewhere I've heard a proverb expressing surprise that Saul should be among the prophets. I hardly think it will be in good taste for me to ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... saved[5]. Another vessel, which escaped that dreadful tempest, was soon afterwards dashed to pieces against a rock; so that the sea was covered with dead bodies and with rich merchandize of all kinds: Thus, as the proverb says, wealth ill acquired is ill lost. Of all these ships one small caravel only rode out the storm, and brought intelligence of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... it is of little consequence what the work is called, or on what interest it turns, provided it catches the public attention; for the quality of the wine (could we but insure it) may, according to the old proverb, render the bush unnecessary, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... for it is said that no phrase becomes a proverb until after a century's experience of its truth. In England it is proverbial to judge of men by the company they keep. Judge of the Cardinal de Rohan from his most intimate friend, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... be nothing good, as we know it, nor anything evil, as we know it, in the eye of the Omnipresent and the Omniscient.—Oriental Proverb. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Flora: Phoebus hath not dried up the pearled dew, and so long Corydon hath taught me, it is not fit to lead the sheep abroad, lest, the dew being unwholesome, they get the rot: but now see I the old proverb true, he is in haste whom the devil drives, and where love pricks forward, there is no worse death than delay. Ah, my good page, is there fancy in thine eye, and passions in thy heart? What, hast thou wrapt love in thy looks, and set all thy thoughts on ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... people before the general resurrection." The monk asked—"Why then father, do you leave us, though we have promised union with you in one place for ever?" Mochuda answered:—"Brother, have you ever heard the proverb—necessity is its own law [necessitas movet decretum et consilium]? Remain ye therefore in your resting places and on the day of general resurrection I shall come with all my brethren and we shall all assemble before the great cross called 'Cross of the Angels' at ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... it. "Nothing walks with aimless feet." Our life is no lottery. We may make foolish experiments with it, but we do so at our own risk. It is no plaything of chance, it is a stern responsibility which is determined by law that brooks no interference and excuses no indifference. The proverb tells us that "our lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing is of the Lord." And just as the dark forces that sweep through our life are not necessarily hostile forces but form part of the order of the world, so things that we regard as haphazard, merely cast into the lap of chance, ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... "I'll give you one month—no: you're such a good, thorough little chap, it will take longer—two months, to change your mind. Only"—he looked down at Rudolph with a comic, elderly air—"let me observe, our yellow people have that rather neat proverb. A hen's head, dear chap,—not with a battle-axe! No. Hot weather's coming, too. No sorrows of Werther, now, over such"—He laughed again. "Don't scowl, I'll be good. I won't say it. You'll supply the word, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... had a proverb, "Better is an army of stags with a lion for their leader, than an army of lions with a stag for their leader." The Cairnhope sword-dancers, though stout fellows and strong against a mortal foe, were but stags against the supernatural; yet, led by Guy Raby, they advanced upon the old church ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... countries and all times the old proverb holds good that one good turn deserves another, they picked up here and there several valuable hints, and none more valuable than the knowledge that somewhere below Abbeville, between that town and the sea, was a tidal ford that could ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... her, worship her, or, as Kettle Flatnose said the other day, 'kiss the ground she walks on,' if thou art so inclined, but don't worry her life out. Show that thou art fond of her, and willing to bide her time. Go on viking cruise, for the proverb says that an 'absent body makes a longing spirit,' and bring her back shiploads of kirtles and mantles and armlets, and gold and silver ornaments—that's what common sense says, Glumm, and a great deal more besides, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... to suspect Grotius, "because," said he, "having always before been a stranger to my house, he has made me the day before the publication thereof a complimentary visit, although it was Sunday and church time; whereby the Italian proverb, 'Chi ti caresse piu che suole,' &c.,' is added to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 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 for ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... for business two printers, who were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men," I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encourag'd me, tho' I did not ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... that he could not do any considerable matter amongst the people, who are cunning to a proverb, he bethought himself of returning to London, and the society of those strumpets in which he took a delight. However, all the way on the road he made a shift to pick up as much as kept him pretty well all ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... river has always been proverbial: "as rich as Dove" being applied to any spot highly forced. The land has a perpetual verdure, and the spring-floods of the river are very gratifying to the land-occupiers, who have this proverb— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... 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. A wren, ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... of the American General already beheld the army of Lord Cornwallis in full flight. His great solicitude seems to have been how to secure his captives. He had, strangely enough for a military man, never taken counsel of the farm-yard proverb, which we need not here repeat for the benefit of the reader.* With the departure of Marion, his better genius left him,—the only man, who, in command of the militia, might have saved him from destruction. Leaving our partisan, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... Third—who wrote at Gloucester the order to Brackenbury for the murder of the princes in the Tower of London—and smiled at Cromwell's mordant wit in saying that the place had more churches than godliness when told of the local proverb, "As sure as God's in Gloucester," Medenham brought them to Northgate Street, where the New Inn—which is nearly always the most antiquated hostelry in an English country-town—supplied a fine example of massive timberwork, ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... exchanged a stinging gout for a mere rheumatism finds himself entirely free from pain. No, the serfs of the Middle Ages were in no sense happy. Stifled moans of misery, a sense of their unutterable agonies, steal up from proverb and by-corners of history—we feel that they were more miserable than jail prisoners at the present day—for then, as now, man groaned at being an inferior, and he had much more than that to groan over in those days of strifes and dirt. And yet every one of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... diet as an aid to continence, perhaps of equal importance with it, is exercise, both physical and mental. It is a trite proverb, the truth of which every one acknowledges, that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do," and it is equally true that he always has an evil thought in readiness—speaking figuratively—to instill into an unoccupied mind. A person who desires to be pure and continent ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... darky as an inferior being," Charley had confided to Walter in a whisper. "There are rumors that there is more than one negro slave in the heart of the Everglades. The Seminoles have a proverb, 'White man, Indian, dog, nigger,' which expresses their opinion ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... We ought to change the old proverb, 'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a poor man to marry a ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... 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. Born in 1639, the son of a small ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... you good. Besides, if you go where Mr. Whimple wants you to, you'll not miss a great deal. I know the boys in that family. They're clean; they have a good library, and—oh well, you go! Remember the proverb: 'It's better to go slow sometimes, than to hustle all ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... to break and end our efforts at any moment, but the quickness with which I had seized upon Preblesham's information confirmed the proverb about the early bird; the threehour reprieve stretched to five and by the time Havas flashed the news I had liquefied almost all of my now worthless assets—and to potential financial rivals. Needless to say I had not trusted solely to the honor of the men ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... twenty-two." The signatures of Messieurs Postel and Gannerac were obviously given to oblige in the way of business; the Cointets would act at need for Gannerac as Gannerac acted for the Cointets. It was a practical application of the well-known proverb, "Reach me the rhubarb and I will pass you the senna." Cointet Brothers, moreover, kept a standing account with Metivier; there was no need of a re-draft, and no re-draft was made. A returned bill between the ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... think whether he really knows wherein lies the welfare of others. Give him some fairy power, inexhaustible purses or magic lamps, not, however, applying to the mind; and see whether he could make those whom he would favour good or happy. In the East, they have a proverb of this kind, Happy are the children of those fathers who go to the Evil One. But for anything that our Western experience shows, the proverb might be reversed, and, instead of running thus, Happy are the sons of those who have ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... designed against the stewards of a feast, who are usually troublesome and press liquor too much upon the guests. For the Dorians in Sicily (as I am informed) called the steward, [Greek omitted] a REMEMBRANCER. Others think that this proverb admonisheth the guests to forget everything that is spoken or done in company; and agreeably to this, the ancients used to consecrate forgetfulness with a ferula to Bacchus, thereby intimating that we should either not remember any irregularity committed in mirth and company, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Let one winter pass without frost to kill vegetation and ice to bind the rivers and snow to enrich our fields, and then you will have to enlarge your hospitals and your cemeteries. "A green Christmas makes a fat grave-yard," was the old proverb. Storms to purify the air. Thermometer at ten degrees above zero to tone up the system. December and January just as important as May and June. I tell you we need the storms of life as much as we do the sunshine. There are more men ruined by ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... dim with age) and perceiving it was something stiffened with starch, she was much displeased and reproved him very sharply, fearing God would not prosper his journey. Yet the man was a plain country man, clad in gray russet, without either welt or guard (as the proverb is) and the band he wore, scarce worth three-pence, made of their own home-spinning; and he was godly and humble as he was plain. What would such professors, if they were now living, say to the excess of ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... is the proverb which men speak: 'A poor man's name is only his own matter.' I am he of whom you spake, even the Lord Steward of whom you think." Thereon he took to him branches of green tamarisk and scourged all his limbs, took his asses, and ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... curious in entremets; while the Middle Temple growls over its geological salad, that some hungry wit has compared to "eating a gravel walk, and meeting an occasional weed." A writer in Blackwood, quoting the old proverb, "The Inner Temple for the rich, the Middle for the poor," says few great men have come from the Middle Temple. How can acumen be derived from the scrag-end of a neck of mutton, or inspiration from griskins? At a late dinner, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... way off, Arthur, and a strange place for the poor love under all the circumstances. Let her be as well cared for as any lady in that land, still it is a long way off. just as Home is Home though it's never so Homely, why you see,' said Mr Meagles, adding a new version to the proverb, 'Rome is Rome, though ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... deformity between the devils and the damned. Some of the latter would fain have sculked at the bottom of the river, and have lain there to all eternity, in a state of strangulation, lest they should get a worse bed father on; but here the proverb was verified, that "he must needs run whom the Devil drives," for with the devils behind, the damned were compelled to go forward unto the beach, to their eternal damnation; where I at the first glance ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... allusion, but, judging that his rhyming gibberish, like that of the rascally priests in Apuleius, was a carefully prepared oracle of general application, kept in stock for the cozening of such prey as myself, I repeated to him my favourite Hindu proverb[7], and gave him, in exchange for his benevolent cheque on the future, a more commonplace article of present value, which led to our parting on the most amicable terms. But I did him injustice, perhaps. ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... to the ancient Catholicism, to that pure Spanish religion, free from all modern extravagances. It would be sad to have spent my life in saving, only to fatten the Jesuits or those sisters who cannot speak Castilian. I do not wish my money to share the fate of that of the sacristans in the proverb. For this reason, to the annoyance I feel at my struggles with this inimical Chapter, I must add the distress I feel at my daughter's feeble character. Probably she will be hunted; some rake will laugh at me and possess himself of ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... being. For what use or enjoyment of them, what peculiar display of magnificence could there be, where the poor man went to the same refreshment with the rich? Hence the observation, that it was only at Sparta where Plutus (according to the proverb) was kept blind, and like an image, destitute of life or motion. It must further be observed, that they had not the privilege to eat at home, and so to come without appetite to the public repast: they made a point ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... to define man, so as to distinguish him from other animals. Burke says, "Man is an animal that cooks its victuals." "Then," says Johnson, "the proverb is just, 'there is reason in roasting eggs.'" Dr. Adam Smith has hit this case; "Man," says he, "is an animal that makes bargains; no other animal does this—one dog does not change a bone with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... the proverb says, [110] he that eats with the devil had need of a long spoon; I have ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... and factories for ginning and pressing cotton. Other industries include the manufacture of gold and silver thread, silk brocades, pottery, paper and shoes. The prosperity of Ahmedabad, says a native proverb, hangs on three threads—silk, gold and cotton; and though its manufactures are on a smaller scale than formerly, they are still moderately flourishing. The military cantonment, 3 m. north of the native town, is the headquarters of the northern division of the Bombay command, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... dove-colored heavens. A faint pang, half-envy, half-regret, vexed the Duke with a dull twinge. "I wish too that by living continently I could have done, once for all, with this faded pose and this idle making of phrases! Eheu! there is a certain proverb concerning pitch so cynical that I suspect it of being truthful. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... husbandmen had to wait until the rain made the ground soft enough for their ploughs to enter it, consequently many had to toil in cold, stormy, winter weather. To this the proverb alludes which says: "The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing." (Prov. ...
— Mother Stories from the Old Testament • Anonymous
... run away with you, my dear," she said, reprovingly. "Even on a wedding-day there should not be too much laughter. Tears before night, when there has been laughter before breakfast, remember the proverb says." ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... gods wish to destroy they first make mad,' is a Latin proverb I picked up at St. Andrew's University, and one of the few scraps of knowledge I carried away from the good old place. They might at least have thrown out some of our cavalry on the right to draw fire ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... abroad and they will in the same way build up the country here. Tribes that have swinish traits were destroyers there and will be destroyers here. This has been common knowledge so long that it has become a proverb: "You can't make a silk purse ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... lone girls lonely!" retorted Mr. Wilkinson. "Ridiculous! That is certainly a fine ground on which to seek sympathy from me! I forget who it is has the proverb, 'Never pity a woman weeping or a cat in the dark.' And I am reminded of it when I look at you two. You and my fair cousin, when you have one another to talk to, are just about as much in need of sympathy ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... vesper is generally used, not vespera. With this passage cf. Fin. 2, 92 an id exploratum cuiquam potest esse quo modo sese habiturum sit corpus. non dico ad annum, sed ad vesperum? Also cf. the title of one of Varro's Menippean Satires, nescis quid vesper serus vehat, probably a proverb. — AETAS ILLA ... ADULESCENTES: some suppose that this sentence was borrowed from Hippocrates. — TRISTIUS: 'severioribus remediis'. Manutius. So Off. 1, 83 leviter aegrotantis leniter curant, gravioribus autem morbis periculosas curationes ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... go? So be it—but follow me! We bear the blame together, let us bear The punishment as well! Dost thou not know The ancient proverb: "None shall die alone?" One home for both, one body—and one death! Long since, when Death stared grimly in our eyes, We sware that oath. Now keep it! ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the first requisite for success,'" he repeated to himself, striving to recall whether or not it was, as she had intimated, a hackneyed proverb for the young; yet there was something bracing in it, coming from her calm, young, womanly lips. "That's it; she has it," he again said to himself. "'Faith.' That's what I need." And he resumed ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... races. The Bundelas—the race who gave the name to the country—still maintain their dignity as chieftains, by disdaining to cultivate the soil, although by no means conspicuous for lofty sentiments of honour or morality. An Indian proverb avers that "one native of Bundelkhand commits as much fraud as a hundred Dandis" (weighers of grain and notorious rogues). About Datia and Jhansi the inhabitants are a stout and handsome race of men, well off and contented. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... St. Denis!" gaily exclaimed the Governor to a tall, courtly gentleman, who was super-intending the labor of a body of his censitaires from Beauport. "'Many hands make light work,' says the proverb. That splendid battery you are just finishing deserves to be called Beauport. What say you, my Lord Bishop?" turning to the smiling ecclesiastic. "Is it not ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... some pages back. Yet let it be remembered that in real experience the novelist's art of foreshadowing the end from the beginning and aiming every petty incident at the final result is very seldom perceptible. "Il ne faut pas voyager pour voir, mais pour ne pas voir," says the proverb; and the journey of life is included in its application. We do our rarest deeds, we take our most important steps, by what seems accident. Instead of forming plans with remote designs, we find it our best policy to seize circumstances as they run past us,—knowing, that, if we have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... engranajes, gearings escala, scale hortelano, fruit gardener inquilino, tenant ir a, to lead to llantas, tyres *moler, to grind operaciones, operations, dealings perro, dog plaza, market place, square, place *poner al corriente, to inform refran, proverb repentino, sudden resortes, springs (mach.) sosa, soda tambores, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... all the universe. He never seemed to breathe, so still he was. And how I admired him for that! My father was a very excitable man, his moods and tempers killed him when he was just over forty.... We have a proverb, 'In the still marshes there are devils,' and we admire and fear quiet men because they have something that we have not. And I like the way that you watch us, Durward. Your friend Trenchard does not watch us ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... in my time, a soldiers' proverb, 'As nasty as a new-made corporal,' With one exception the sergeant-majors were good fellows and popular with their men. I shall not give the name of the exception, for he may be still alive; but he was commonly known as 'The Pig,' and he deserved his title. ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... face. "I will bring back your man, Senorita," he said in Spanish. "And this great strong one"—he pierced Carter through with his black gaze—"shall guard you till I come again." Then he smiled and flung at him that stinging Spanish proverb which runs, "In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king!" Then he went out of the house, dropping to his hands and knees, hugging the shadows, creeping along the tunnel of tropic green which led to the ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... ever since the imprisonment by James II. of the Seven Bishops—one of them Sir Jonathan Trelawney—a popular proverb throughout Cornwall, the whole of this song was composed by me in the year 1825. I wrote it under a stag-horned oak in Sir Beville's Walk in Stowe Wood. It was sent by me anonymously to a Plymouth paper, and there it attracted the notice of Mr. Davies Gilbert, who reprinted it at his private ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... of those coincidences at which we all wonder when they occur, but which are so frequent as to have become enshrined in a proverb. For, even as I formed the resolution, I observed two men approaching from the direction of Blackfriars, and recognised in them my quondam teacher and ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... he has since obtained for a wife, in opposition to the will of her family. He might, besides, have flattered himself that he should easily have gained a pardon from her by whom he was beloved, according to the Italian proverb, "Che la forza d'amore non riguarda al delitto" (Lovers are not criminal in the estimation of one another). Accordingly, the Marquis solicited Don John to be despatched to me on some errand, and arrived, as I said before, ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... replied, "we not only have had a long ride but we may have to set out on a longer tomorrow, and you know the proverb: ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... grasp he held her fast. The emotion she had expressed as he stood there before poor Miss Birdseye was only one of her instinctive contortions; he had taken due note of that—said to himself that a good many more would probably occur before she would be quiet. A woman that listens is lost, the old proverb says; and what had Verena done for the last three weeks but listen?—not very long each day, but with a degree of attention of which her not withdrawing from Marmion was the measure. She had not told him that Olive wanted to whisk her away, but he had not needed this confidence to know that if ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... Artificers will thank me, more than the Households of the Peasants shall Sir ROGER. Sir ROGER gives to his Men, but I place mine above the Necessity or Obligation of my Bounty. I am in very little Pain for the Roman Proverb upon the Carthaginian Traders; the Romans were their professed Enemies: I am only sorry no Carthaginian Histories have come to our Hands; we might have been taught perhaps by them some Proverbs against the Roman Generosity, in fighting for and bestowing other ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... elevation to their attention to the toilet. Place, fortune, marriage have all been lost by neglecting it. A man need not mingle long with the world to find occasion to exclaim with Sedaine, "Ah! mon habit, que je vous remercie!" In spite of the proverb, the dress ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... put in motion for the western frontier at the commencement of the present year; and the circumstances which led to so important a proceeding were briefly these. The kingdom of Affghanistan has been called the land of transition between eastern and western Asia: a proverb says, "No one can be king of Hindoostan without first becoming lord of Cabool." The founder of the Affghan empire was Ahmed Shah, who died in 1773. Ahmed Shah made several victorious incursions into the East; and his son, Timour Shah, followed his example. The decease of Timour Shah, however, delivered ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... preacher and a judge and a school principal and a commander of pilots, and of such people in official positions I presume there may be as many as a dozen altogether, but they are for the most part, as the proverb says, good men, but poor fiddlers. And all the others are ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... mountains were trained by life-long habit to look on life and death with iron philosophy. As I passed by a couple of tall, lank, Oklahoma cow-punchers, I heard one say, "Well, some of the boys got it in the neck!" to which the other answered with the grim plains proverb of the South: ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... you'll do, I guess—and he eats as hearty as a turkey-cock; and he never confined himself to water neither, when he could get anything convened him better. Says he, "Sam, grandfather Slick used to say there was an old proverb in Yorkshire, 'A full belly makes a strong back,' and I guess if you try it, natur' will tell you so too." If ever you go to Connecticut, jist call into father's, and he'll give you a real right down genuine New England breakfast, and if that don't happify your ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... companions and friends; for a very complaisant and agreeable companion may, and often does, prove a very improper and a very dangerous friend. People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you, upon that which they have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb, which says very justly, TELL ME WHO YOU LIVE WITH AND I WILL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE. One may fairly suppose, that the man who makes a knave or a fool his friend, has something very bad to do or to conceal. But, at the same time that you carefully decline ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield |
