Proverbial Wisdom Quotes

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced--even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.

A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase "It is the busiest man who has time to spare."

The wise make proverbs, and fools repeat them.

My dad was a very quiet person, and unbelievably tough. But my grandmother gave me my first look at negative thinking to bring about positive results. When I was just a little guy, anytime I came to my grandmother and said I wish for this or that, Grandma would say, 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.'

Help thyself and Heaven will help thee.

The proverb says that 'The answer to a fool is silence'. Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run.

I always think it is kind of funny when it comes to wisdom, and I say God has a sense of humor, because my middle name is Solomon, and I love the Book of Proverbs which is written by Solomon, and I have read from the Book of Proverbs to start and end every day since I was 14.

Humans have a saying that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", which basically means that if you think it's beautiful, then it is beautiful. The elfin version of this saying was composed by the great poet B.O Selecta, who said "Even the plainest of the plain shall deign to reign", which critics have always thought was a bit rhymey. The dwarf version of this maxim is "If it don't stink, marry it", which is slightly less romantic, but the general gist is the same.

Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed.

The "sayings" of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech - it is a gift from heart to heart.

The aphorism wants to be at the same time both main line and off beat.

In Russia, we have proverb: Only bad soldiers don't want to be general.

The beginning, as the proverb says, is half the whole.

In all the languages in the world, there is the same proverb: "What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve over." Well, I say that there isn't an ounce of truth in it. The further off they are, the closer to the heart are all those feelings that we try to repress and forget.

When the Foxe preacheth, beware geese.

Proverbs were anterior to boots, and formed the wisdom of the vulgar, and in the earliest ages were the unwritten laws of morality.

An Italian proverb says, In men every mortal sin is venial; in woman every venial sin is mortal. And a German axiom, that There are only two good women in the world: one of them is dead, and the other is not to be found.

Solomon's Proverbs, I think, have omitted to say, that as the sore palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendos.

I'm obsessed with proverbs because, to me, flexing is being able to say the most with the least amount of words.

Proverbs are the literature of reason, or the statements of absolute truth, without qualification. Like the sacred books of each nation, they are the sanctuary of its intuitions.

If life throws you a lemon - make lemonade.

There is a proverbial saying chiefly concerned with warning against too closely calculating the numerical value of un-hatched chicks.

There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse.