"Proverb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dare say your lordship's education hasn't precluded your knowledge of a very true, though rather vulgar proverb, "one man may lead a horse to the water, but twenty can't make ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... judges, therefore, it provoked bitter opposition and denunciation. A few men in the convention had very fierce opinions, seasoned with a kind of wit, and of these, the restless energy of Erastus Root soon earned for him considerable notoriety. Indeed, it passed into a sort of proverb that there were three parties in the convention—the Republicans, the Federalists, and Erastus Root. It is not so clear that he had as much influence as his long prominence in public life would seem to entitle him; but when he did happen to stand with ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the hall, lest the wooers use it in the coming fray. He is to explain the removal by saying that it has been done, "Lest you fall to strife in your cups, and harm each other, and shame the feast, and this wooing; for iron of himself draweth a man to him." The proverb is manifestly of an age when iron was almost universally used for weapons, and thus was, as in Thucydides, synonymous with all warlike gear; but throughout the poems no single article of warlike gear is of iron except one eccentric mace and one arrow-head of primitive type. The line ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... passing a cleared field or two, one of which seemed yet under cultivation and shewed corn stalks and pumpkin vines, but the other was in that poverty-stricken state described by the proverb as 'I once had.' The house was a mere skeleton. Clapboards, indeed, there were still, and shingles; but doors and windows had long since been removed—by man or Time,—and through the open spaces you could see here a cupboard door, and there a stairway, and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... speech his accents flow. Yet every joy has he resigned And cleaves to thee with heart and mind. Thus by the deeds that he has done A name in heaven has Bharat won, For in his life he follows yet Thy steps, O banished anchoret. Thus faithful Bharat, nobly wise, The proverb of the world belies: "No men, by mothers' guidance led, The footsteps of their fathers tread." How could Kaikeyi, blest to be Spouse of the king our sire, and see A son like virtuous Bharat, blot Her glory ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... many calamities his passing that river would bring upon mankind, and what a relation of it would be transmitted to posterity. At last, in a sort of passion, casting aside calculation, and abandoning himself to what might come, and using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold attempts, "The die is cast," with these words he took the river. Once over, he used all expedition possible, and before it was day reached Ariminum, and took it. It is said ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Spare-the-Rod's child also this true proverb was fulfilled, that the child is the father of the man. For all that little Obstinate had been in the nursery, in the schoolroom, and in the playground—all that, only in an aggravated way—he was as a youth and as a grown-up man. For one thing, Obstinate all his days ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... position. I was arrested by the provisional government on the order of Lieutenant Colonel Niglitsch on a most flimsy charge of traveling with false passports. In those times arrests and executions were the order of the day. The old Servian proverb of "Od Roba Ikad Iz Groba Nikad" (Out of prison, yes; out of the grave, never) was fully acted upon. There were really no incriminating papers of any description upon me, but my being seen and associating with persons opposed to the provisional government was quite enough ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... a dog of mature age even the simplest thing is so well known that it has passed into a proverb: "It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." In other words, the conditions must be favorable. But what is the case with the elephant? The question shall be answered by G. P. Sanderson. In his "Wild Beasts ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... been Russia's pawn since the days when Peter the Great sent his Envoy to Vladika Danilo. Montenegro had become Russia's outpost in the West. Russia was Montenegro's God—and her paymaster. "The dog barks for him that feeds him!" says an Albanian proverb. Montenegro barked, and ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook are several men, and distinguished from each other as much as the mincing Lady- Prioress and the broad-speaking, gap-toothed Wife of Bath. . . . It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our forefathers and great-grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days. Their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of monks, and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... voice, exclaimed repeatedly, "Revenge us this day, Lechlavar! revenge us and the nation in this man!" On being chidden and driven away by those who understood the British language, she more vehemently and forcibly vociferated in the like manner, alluding to the vulgar fiction and proverb of Merlin, "That a king of England, and conqueror of Ireland, should be wounded in that country by a man with a red hand, and die upon Lechlavar, on his return through Menevia." This was the name of that stone which serves as a bridge over the river Alun, which divides ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... 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
... an agricultural rather than a manufacturing county, and has long been famed for its corn and cattle. Fuller mentions the vale of Aylesbury as producing the biggest bodied sheep in England, and "Buckinghamshire bread and beef" is an old proverb. Lace-making, first introduced into this county by the Fleming refugees from the Alva persecution, became a very profitable industry. The monopolies of James I. considerably injured this trade, and in 1623 a petition was addressed to the high sheriff of Buckinghamshire representing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... divide, break up, separate. Emily is going to school, Branwell is going to London, and I am going to be a governess. This last determination I formed myself, knowing that I should have to take the step sometime, 'and better sune as syne,' to use the Scotch proverb; and knowing well that papa would have enough to do with his limited income, should Branwell be placed at the Royal Academy, and Emily at Roe Head. Where am I going to reside? you will ask. Within four miles of you, at a place ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... The ancient proverb now I know for sure: Death and a prison know nor kin nor tie, Since for mere lack of gold they let me lie. Much for myself I grieve; for them still more. After my death they will have grievous wrong If ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... have enough with economy to live upon,' sighed Neville, half wearily and half cheerily, 'while I wait to be learned, and wait to be righted! Else I might have proved the proverb, that while the grass grows, the ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... trouble it had brought to him, and of the struggles which even now it cost him, an elderly man, which made him so intolerant of its existence in others, especially the young. It is not necessary for the reader to quote the oft-repeated proverb about dwellers in glass houses, for uncle Rutherford was perfectly conscious of the exceeding fragility of his own panes; and his only wish was to warn and help those who were cursed with a fiery, impetuous ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... friend Bill, from being the pleasantest and most genial of fellows, he became a morose, misanthropic man. Dr. Franklin has a significant proverb,—"Silks and satins put out the kitchen fire." Silks and satins—meaning by them the luxuries of housekeeping—often put out not only the parlor fire, but that more sacred flame, the fire of domestic ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... might have had a very different life, for he had a good heart both in childhood and after childhood, that I know. But the Russian proverb says, 'If a man has one head, it's good, but if another clever man comes to visit him, it would be better still, for then there will be two heads and not only ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and wine which it poured into the harbours of Africa and Gaul. As with individuals, so with states, wealth easily obtained is prodigally spent, and the effeminate and voluptuous ostentation of Sybaris passed into a proverb more enduring than her prosperity. Her greatness, acquired by a tempered and active democracy, received a mortal blow by the usurpation of a tyrant named Telys, who, in 510 B. C., expelled five hundred of the principal citizens. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... damaged. The morn was now breaking, and there was the usual gathering of quizzing onlookers. It turned out that I was the last man out of the barn. Some of my bed-fellows, I found, were as guilty as myself in disregarding the force of the proverb "Look before you leap," for one of them, in making his hurried exit, jumped through the first opening he came across to find himself in the stables—"in a manger for his bed." Through the fall he sustained a broken arm. One or two of the ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... 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, ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... slip," Hath the proverb well said, "'twixt the cup and the lip!" How blest should we be, have I often conceived, Had we really achieved what we nearly achieved! We but catch at the skirts of the thing we would be, And fall back on ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... a thing willed, or a will.—This third meaning, which is generally given the least consideration, is the most significant. If, in truth, habit is the will of man, then this alone can be his real will. In this sense the proverb is significant that habit is called a second nature, and that man is a creature of habit. Habit is, in fact, a psychic disposition, which drives and urges to a specific act, and this is the will in its most outstanding form, as ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... be something to save. Lockhart must be liked where his good qualities are known, and where his fund of information has room to be displayed. But, notwithstanding a handsome exterior and face, I am not sure he will succeed in London Society; he sometimes reverses the proverb, and gives the volte strette e pensiere sciolti, withdraws his attention from the company, or attaches himself to some individual, gets into a corner, and seems to be quizzing the rest. This is the want of early habits of being in society, and a life led much at college. Nothing ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the head of the lying-in woman. Nor could the Treasury effectually restrain the chimneyman from using his powers with harshness: for the tax was farmed; and the government was consequently forced to connive at outrages and exactions such as have, in every age made the name of publican a proverb for all that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... succeeded in alienating not only the Patriarchist Slavs whom they freely murdered, but even in many cases the very Exarchists, who came to dislike the komitadji bands, whom they were required to shelter and to feed and to assist with a subscription to their funds. "Still more," says a Bulgarian proverb—"still more than if you have a boat on the sea or a Roumanian wife, are you certain to sleep ill if you have a property in Macedonia." As year after year went by and the komitadji men appeared to be doing very little beyond terrorizing the country, those ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... 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 ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... adages. The former is quoted by Cicero as an ancient proverb in his days (De Senect. cap. iii.). The meaning of it is, that, "equals or persons of the same age and rank, flock together." The literal meaning of the other is "like take pleasure in like." It ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... is good, Teule,' she said, answering my unspoken question; 'for you and for our son there is no better, but for myself I will answer in the proverb of my people, "The earth that bears us lies ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 nowadays to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... swarm, hence valuable. Gram repeated to us a proverb in rhyme which set forth the relative ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... houses or places of resort for gambling, genteel and ungenteel. In vain did the officers of the law seem to exert their utmost vigilance; if they drove the serpent out of one hole it soon glided into another; never was the proverb—'Where there's a will ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... some are enriched by Trade, but here all we have is contrived to ruin us: Some make large Fortunes by their Skill in the Laws, but with us, where Plaintiffs or Defendants are one or other of them Beggars, the Proverb will tell you what is got by the Suit. I must add to all these Complaints, that even Avarice cannot bring a Man in Ireland a moderate Acquisition of Wealth; for here all Men do so universally outlive their Circumstances, that Saving is grown as ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... peculiarities of great historical figures which appertain to them as private persons. Man must eat and drink; he sustains relations to friends and acquaintances; he has passing impulses and ebullitions of temper. "No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre," is a well-known proverb; I have added—and Goethe repeated it ten years later—"but not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet." He takes off the hero's boots, assists him to bed, knows that he prefers champagne, etc. Historical personages waited upon ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... beginnings they operated very strongly. The air of this Court was to take the counterpart of all which had been thought right under Louis XIV. "Cela resemble trop a l'ancien systeme" was an answer so often given that it became a jest and almost a proverb. But to finish this account with a fact which is incredible, but strictly true; the very peace which had saved France from ruin, and the makers of it, were become as unpopular at this Court as at the Court ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... real conviction of truth. For that reason, the person who has convinced himself of his truth artificially, watches all doubts and objections with much greater care than a man who has no doubt whatever in what he says. The former, moreover, does not have a good conscience, and the proverb says truly, "a bad conscience has a fine ear.'' The man knows that he is not dealing correctly with the thing and hence he observes all objections, and the fact that he does so observe, can not be easily ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... serves to convince any person who doubts my story, that the facts of it are really true. I have left it at the office of my publisher, along with the extract from the Bengal Hurkaru, and anybody may examine both by applying in the counting-house of Mr. Cunningham.* That once popular expression, or proverb, "are you up to snuff?" arose out of the above circumstance; for the officers of my corps, none of whom, except myself, had ventured on the storming-party, used to twit me about this modest reward for my labors. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... person, nor regard for his interest, nor compassion for the youth and innocence of the Duke d'Enghien, to perceive the imprudence, as well as wickedness, of the proceeding. The remark of the callous Fouche had passed into a proverb, "It was worse than a ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... believe in this when I find that a man who has 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 those serfs was ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... young as to the old." Though the dullest of dramas, it is so brightened by brilliant legs that it dazzles every beholder. Why, then, should the stern advocate of the legitimate drama refuse to acknowledge that the Twelve Temptations has its redeeming legs? How runs the ancient proverb, "Singed milk is better than it looks;" or that equally ancient philosophical maxim, "There is no use in crying over spilt cats"? The stupid story of ULRIC'S folly is made more attractive than one would suppose that it could be, and we need not weep over the fact that it is a spectacle, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... reached our last lesson from the life and character of Queen Victoria. Some will be surprised that this lesson should have been kept for the last one, as the kindness and sympathy of the late Queen was a proverb among her people. But, if we come to think of it, it is far best to have kept it to the last. Mere kindness, apart from sincerity, apart from moral courage, without the rainbow of purity, counts low among the virtues. We have known kind people, have we not, who ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... tried in this way, and I should not be afraid to attempt the proof of the paramount efficacy of preaching on the scheme, and in the line of argument laid down by himself in this section. In short, Hooker frequently finds it convenient to forget the homely proverb; 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating.' Whose parishes were the best disciplined, whose flocks the best fed, the soberest livers, and the most awakened and best informed Christians, those of the zealous preaching divines, or those of the prelatic ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... M. Sauvager, and the President du Ronceret looked at Camusot, and one thought troubled their minds. The lady's tone, the way in which she flung her proverb in the faces of the eight conspirators against the house of d'Esgrignon, caused them inward perturbation, which they dissembled as provincials can dissemble, by dint of lifelong practice in the shifts of a monastic existence. Little Mme. Camusot saw their change of countenance ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... let it be a court of love at least," said Lady Cecilia. "What a pretty proverb that was, Helen, that we met with the other day in that book of old English proverbs—'Love rules his kingdom without ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... do so, holding so near a place to my lord's person, were she mine enemy. Bear this truth in upon her as occasion offers, Anthony, and let me alone for extolling you in her ear, and exalting you in her opinion—KA ME, KA THEE—it is a proverb all over the world. The lady must know her friends, and be made to judge of the power they have of being her enemies; meanwhile, watch her strictly, but with all the outward observance that thy rough nature will permit. 'Tis an excellent thing that sullen look and bull-dog humour of thine; thou shouldst ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... mass of new members. Meanwhile the strike in the North was proceeding. Not a hand stirred, and Newcastle, the chief coal port, was so stripped of its commodity that coal had to be brought from the Scotch coast, in spite of the proverb. At first, while the Union's funds held out, all went well, but towards summer the struggle became much more painful for the miners. The greatest want prevailed among them; they had no money, for the contributions of the workers ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... humanity; and the like is true in literature. But writing cannot be luminous and great save in the hands of those whose words are their own by the indefeasible title of conquest. Life is spent in learning the meaning of great words, so that some idle proverb, known for years and accepted perhaps as a truism, comes home, on a day, like a blow. "If there were not a God," said Voltaire, "it would be necessary to invent him." Voltaire had therefore a right to use the word, but some of those who use it most, if they would be perfectly ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... I sat up with him last night; and, poor man! it is impossible to tell thee, how easy and safe he thought himself in my company, for the first part of the night: A drowning man will catch at a straw, the proverb well says: and a straw was I, with respect to any real help I could give him. He often awaked in terrors; and once calling out for me, Dear Belford, said he, Where are you!—Oh! There you are!—Give me your friendly hand!—Then ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... way in 1817 to do me a service, 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, and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Romans found them so fickle and troublesome that they were all reduced in one little war after another. The Tarentines had to surrender and lose their walls and their fleet, and so had the people of Sybaris, who have become a proverb for idleness, for they were so lazy that they were said to have killed all their crowing-birds for waking them too early in the morning. All the peninsula of Italy now belonged to Rome, and great roads were made of paved stones connecting them with it, many of which remain to this day, ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... that Sancho-like simplicity with which most of his countrymen utter a proverb, as though it were an experience rather than a legend, and, taking the riata from the floor, held it ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... more esteem for her 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 ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... There is an old proverb which speaks of getting out of the frying-pan into the fire, which was indeed my unhappy case in this change of masters. This priest was, without exception, the most niggardly of all miserable devils I have ever ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... ordinances of Augurs who, to make themselves necessary in the world, were obliged to keep up and quicken men's apprehensions of the wrath of God, took special care to cultivate comets, and bring it into a proverb, that "so many comets so many calamities." They knew, as Livy expresses it, that it was best to fish in troubled waters, where, speaking of a contagious distemper, which, from the country villages, spread over the city, occasioned by an extraordinary drought in the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... that blows nobody any good," says the old proverb, the truth of which was exemplified in this instance. If the captain lost his milk, the crew gained a plentiful supply of fresh meat by the accident, faring sumptuously for many days afterwards on roast beef and all sorts of delicate dishes which Cuffee concocted out of the ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... so true the youth, Maids, to this day, their story tell: And hence the proverb rose, that Truth Lies in the ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... part that, a few steps nearer to where Annie sat, the path led behind a stunted ash-tree. So he stepped aside with the proverb, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... and friendly game now and then, just to pass the time away a little agreeably. By this means he may readily mark down his man, and the game once in view, he should not appear too eager in the pursuit of it, but take good care, as the proverb says, to give a sprat, in order to catch a herring. This should be done by allowing some temporary success, before ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... 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" of our ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... wisdom because of the important and high position which he occupied. Only in the morning, just at the time Nekhludoff came to see him, he was like a reasonable being, could understand what was said to him, and fulfil more or less aptly a proverb he was fond of repeating: "He's tipsy, but he's wise, so he's pleasant ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... believe as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world which thou oughtest to hear will vibrate on thine ear. Every proverb, every book, every by-word that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will, but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... of Athenais lost nothing with the passing seasons, but grew more perfect, even under the inexplicable shade of dissatisfaction that sometimes veiled it. "Fair as the wife of Hermas" was a proverb in Antioch; and soon men began to add to it, "Beautiful as the son of Hermas"; for the child developed swiftly in that favouring clime. At nine years of age he was straight and strong, firm of limb and ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... English I've kept, but I think of him now as the very quietest man in 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 at all and one could be his friend. For you one has quite another feeling. It is as ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... poisoned, and a pestilence broke out 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 ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... play this game is for the players to divide themselves into two groups, namely, actors and audience. Each one of the actors should then fix upon a proverb, which he will act, in turn, before the audience. As, for instance, supposing one of the players to have chosen the proverb, "A bad workman quarrels with his tools," he should go into the room where the audience is seated, carrying with him a bag in which there is a saw, a hammer, or any other ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... overcoming of this peril it was only necessary for him to make himself secure against a few, but this would not have been sufficient had the people been hostile. And do not let any one impugn this statement with the trite proverb that "He who builds on the people, builds on the mud," for this is true when a private citizen makes a foundation there, and persuades himself that the people will free him when he is oppressed by his enemies or by the magistrates; wherein he would find himself very often deceived, as happened ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... of the property owners to support the poor. Then a white-faced citizen arose and proposed flatly that women should rule, that being the one thing which had never yet been tried. The motion was carried with great enthusiasm, the men declaring that "an old proverb says all our senseless and foolish decisions turn out for good". When Praxagora returns to the stage, she declares she intends to introduce a system of absolute communism. All citizens are to live and dine in common and possess wives in common, existing on the work of slaves. Any person who refuses ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... 'Yes, you are right, your husband is a bad fellow, justice shall be done you; but this justice will cost you five hundred francs.' Five hundred francs! that would support you and your family for a whole year! Now, do you see, Jeanne? all this proves what the proverb says, that there are only two kinds of people: those who are hung and ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... commenced his mercantile career by peddling goods that he carried in a band-box from one milliner's shop to another. "You must creep before you can walk," is an old maxim, and the lives of all distinguished men verify the proverb. He who creeps well, will walk so much the better by and by; but he who is ashamed to creep, must never expect to walk. We know a successful merchant who commenced the work of an errand-boy in a large mercantile house, when he was about twelve years old. ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... she fainted. The Governor knew enough. He summoned the young man and, being convinced of his guilt, had him put in prison, while awaiting further information. It is well said in a certain proverb: "Even while you are sitting in your house with the doors shut, ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... will take charge of it now," he said, placing it in her hands. As he did so there flashed across his mind the cynical appropriateness of the old proverb about locking doors after ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... he dreaded it; for if the talk should confirm his suspicious there would be no hope for him. No girl in her right mind would prefer him to Guy Remington, and with a little sigh the doctor was turning away from the glass, when, as if to verify a familiar proverb, Guy himself drove up in a most dashing equipage, the silver-tipped harness of his high-mettled steed flashing in the wintry sunlight, and the bright-hued lining of his fanciful robes ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... there is no turning aside and no turning back. And many have chosen to turn back while there was yet time, leaving the mark unmade. For most men are cowards and shun responsibility. Most men unconsciously steer their way by proverb or catchword; and all the wise saws of all the nations ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... Many fruits, moreover, have a magnificent fragrance which lends to their agreeable taste. It is somewhat of a pity that fruit is not more ordinarily eaten at meals, particularly with the breakfast. There is an old proverb that fruit is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night; and it is undoubtedly a fact that it is especially beneficial when eaten early in the day. In France, fruit is a constant part of every meal, and there is no question but that ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... leave my carbine, for, as the Castilian proverb says, "Two friends are one." My carbine is my best friend; and I always keep it beside me. Although you allow me to come into your house, and do not oblige me to leave it until I wish to do so, there are others who would think nothing of hauling me out, and, perhaps, with my ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... chief, and to convey Norris only to his government at Munster; which aggravated the great heart of the general to see himself undervalued, and undermined, by my lord and Burrows, which was, as the Proverb speaks, ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... these last great proverbs; and combine them in your mind. Remember that while England is, and ever will be, behindhand in metaphysical and scholastic science, she is the nation which above all others has conquered nature by obeying her; that as it pleased God that the author of that proverb, the father of inductive science, Bacon Lord Verulam, should have been an Englishman, so it has pleased Him that we, Lord Bacon's countrymen, should improve that precious heirloom of science, inventing, producing, exporting, importing, till it seems as if the whole human race, and every land ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... be troubled exceedingly at the loss of a valuable diamond, and asked Nixon if he could inform him where it was to be found. Henry had hidden the diamond himself, with a view to test the prophet's skill. Great, therefore, was his surprise when Nixon answered him in the words of the old proverb, "Those who hide can find." From that time forth the king implicitly believed that he had the gift of prophecy, and ordered all his words to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... work for it. Yes, mio amico, work is the greatest intoxication, the greatest blessing, the greatest solace we can know. Therefore work, work, work. But of all things, my good musical friends in America, remember the old German proverb: ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... character and the greatness of his achievements are remarkably indicated by a variety of testimonies, which place him among the foremost men of the Old World, and guarantee him a never-ending remembrance. At least as early as the time of Moses his name had passed into a proverb. He was known as "the mighty hunter before the Lord"—an expression which had probably a double meaning, implying at once skill and bravery in the pursuit and destruction of wild beasts, and also a genius for war and success ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... be so false 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 ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... hope you may be so blessed, captain," Mr. Dinsmore said, "but much will depend upon the training to which they are subjected. There is truth in the old proverb, 'Just as the twig is ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... the morning when I made the eight-cakes-and-one-sausage speech that passed into a family proverb. The night before I had thrown a candle-end, four inches long, into the fire, and my mother had told me it was a Christian duty to be economical, defining the word for me. Bent, as usual, upon practising what I learned, I divided ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... 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. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... 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: "Araignee ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... beautiful compend of them in Pope's "Messiah" he will I believe allow, that if it were possible for such things as the above mentioned, to be really intended by those prophecies, they would be the greatest hoax, and the most flagrant and enormous verification of the old proverb "parturiunt montes nascitur ridiculus mus," ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... misgivings as to the success of her experiment. 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 ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... No proverb is too hackneyed to be comforting at times, and the girl reminded herself that blood is thicker than water as she looked among her mother's papers for the Menotti address. They were her cousins, birds of a feather. She wrote them a queer, shy, charming letter in strange Italian, ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... General, "queer Highlands! And it must be now or never with us, must it? Well, young gentleman, you have nerve at least," and he quoted a Gaelic proverb. He put his hand on the shoulder of the other and leaned to whisper. Gilian could make the action out against the sky. Then "Good-night" and the father's footsteps went back to the door and the unknown proceeded down ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... indebted to the same writer for the following Oriental market-picture—we might say scene in a proverb: ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... diverting to themselves as to us. On one occasion he ended their discussion (as to whether some lady of their acquaintance had or had not gone somewhere) by a vehement declaration which passed into a proverb in our house: "Yes, yes, she did; for a woman will go anywhere, at any time, with anybody, to see any thing—especially in a gig." Those were days in which a gig was a vehicle the existence of which was not only recognized in civilized society, but supposed to confer a diploma of "gentility" ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... you little children all like him so well," said she. "He may be funny and good-natured, but he is not a suitable playmate for anybody, especially for a small boy like you. Remember the old proverb, 'Eggs should ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... of "keeping a hotel"—a slang expression which has become a proverb—how well the women in Europe understand their business, and how poorly the women in America understand theirs! In England and all over the Continent the newly arrived stranger is received by a woman neatly dressed, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... ago, what was then the District, and is now the State, of Maine, was a proverb in New England for the poverty of its people, mainly because they were so largely engaged in timber cutting. The great grain-growing, wheat-exporting districts of the Russian empire have a poor and rude people for a like reason. Thus the industry of Massachusetts is immensely more productive ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Flatau's observations on this point. It may be added that inverted women are very often good whistlers; Hirschfeld even knows two who are public performers in whistling. It is scarcely necessary to remark that while the old proverb associates whistling in a woman with crowing in a hen, whistling in a woman is no evidence of any general ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... on my point, he had adopted the old proverb—of bringing Mahomet to the mountain, if he could not bring the mountain to Mahomet; had procured an order for their attendance in Paris, through his influence with the chief of the police, and now hoped to have the honour of their company at dinner. This was, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... quoth Bolton" is an old proverb of unknown origin. Ray tells us that a Collection of Proverbs having been presented to Queen Elizabeth, with an assurance that it contained all the proverbs in the English language. "Bate me an ace, quoth Bolton," said ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... speech of Mr. Webster, and the defence thereof by Mr. Stuart, the letter of the retainers and the letters of the retained, will be a curiosity; the conduct of the whigs and democrats an amazement, and the peculiar institution a proverb amongst all the nations of the earth. In the turmoil of party politics, and of personal controversy, let us not forget continually to move the previous question, whether Freedom or Slavery is to prevail ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... Planter's avarice, the Driver's knavery? To school the heathen Negroes and enlighten 'em, To polish up and brighten 'em, And make them worthy of eternal bliss? Why, no—the simple end and aim was this— Reading a well-known proverb much amiss— To wash and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... It was the only costly present on that Christmas tree, full as it was, and rich in love. The present was a little silver inkstand, with a dove in the centre, bearing not an olive branch, but a little scroll in its beak, with these words, which Emilie had suggested, and being a favourite German proverb of hers. I will give it in her own language, in which by the bye it was engraved. She had written the letter containing the order for the plate to a fellow-countryman of hers, in London, and had forgotten to specify ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... Biddy's suspicions) was inclined to think that, even if she were right, we had seen the last of them. After such a setback as that in the Temple of Mut, he thought they would not only be discouraged but frightened. They had run away from us, in the temple; and despite the proverb concerning those who fight and run, to fight another day, it was probable that men of their calibre would see the wisdom of abandoning the chase. They had shown themselves cowards, Anthony thought, whatever their object had been in attacking Miss O'Brien ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... to fight," said the captain to Tom. "But under the circumstances I am inclined to be lenient with you. You can retire, and this evening during off time I want you to write one hundred times, the proverb ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... and my Face is full enough, in all Conscience, for one that carries such a Skeleton of a Body about him. I have Hair enough on my Head not to stand in need of a Peruke; and 'tis gray, too, in spite of the Proverb. My Sight is good enough, tho' my Eyes are large; they are of a blue Colour, and one of them is sunk deeper into my Head than the other, which was occasion'd by my leaning on that Side. My Nose is well enough mounted. My Teeth, which in the Days of Yore look'd like a Row of square Pearl, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... people and not given to "crying over spilled milk" (which was Grandpa's favorite proverb) they soon decided to enjoy every minute of Daddy's stay ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... the 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 ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... David," said Tom, who could not help thinking about the proverb concerning a dog with a bad name. "This shutter must have a proper fastening. But who would have thought of any one getting a ladder? You ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... knew what was about to happen. "When a man's mind is made up," says the old Irish proverb, "his feet must set out ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a few paces, the doctor discovered that his wife had not followed him, and turning he called savagely: "Pepeeta, come! It is folly to try and p-p-persuade him. Let us leave the saint to his prayers! But let him remember the old p-p-proverb, 'young saint, ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... precocious pupil. That order and regularity, apparently as fixed as the laws of a planetary system, were interrupted whenever Jacinto was ill or had to take a journey. Useless celibacy of the clergy! The Council of Trent prohibits them from having children of their own, but God—and not the Devil, as the proverb says—gives them nephews and nieces in order that they may know the ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... and politeness always comes from within, and is born of a life of love, kindliness, and service. This is the universal language, known and understood everywhere, even when our words are not. There is, you know, a beautiful old proverb which says, "He who is kind and courteous to strangers thereby shows himself a citizen of the world." And there is nothing so remembered, and that so endears one to all mankind, as this universal language. Even dumb animals understand it and are affected by it. How quickly ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... know wit, according to the proverb, Shakspeare's time should be capable of recognizing it. Sir Henry Wotton was born four years after Shakspeare, and died twenty-three years after him; and I find, among his correspondents and acquaintances, the following persons: Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... proverb says it is good to be born with a silver spoon in one's mouth: so it is when one has one's own family crest on it; ut when it is a spoon on which people recognize their family crest, and cry out, 'Stolen from our plate chest,' it is a heritage that outlaws a babe in his cradle. However, young ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The Dauphin accordingly weighed anchor and proceeded into the open sea to run with the wind, when all at once Wallis perceived a bay seven or eight miles distant, which he determined to reach. The captain was soon to experience the truth of the proverb which asserts that one had better ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... had ever seen any before. He wanted to take a few friends and go and look for the children at once; but his father and mother begged him not to risk his life in the jungle at night; the woman had been a fool but that could not be remedied; people must learn by experience; as the Hindu proverb says "When your caste goes, wisdom comes." They could not allow the breadwinner of the family to risk his life; though the roof and doors of the house had gone, the walls remained; as long as the tree stood new branches would grow; but if the tree fell there was no more hope; so in the end the ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... dreadfully disappointed. The certainty of being punished and then, after all, seeing nothing but bottles, did seem rather unfair.... So I—walked around to—to see if I could find something to look at which would repay me for the punishment.... There is a proverb, isn't there Pa-pah?—something about ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... has it, 'All they that take the sword shall perish by the sword,'" continued the count. "It is not your fault, master, if the Electoral Prince does not know this proverb. Now farewell, master, and be of good courage, for another good proverb says, 'Fortune smiles on the brave.' Go now, master, my chamberlain awaits ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... charm. He asserted boldly that a man's house ought to grow around him like an oyster's-shell, and should fit him just as perfectly; in fact, that it should be created, not built. From architects and their works he prayed devoutly to be delivered, and having theretofore illustrated that part of the proverb which avers that "fools build houses," he declared himself determined thenceforth only to illustrate the latter-part of the proverb:—"and wise men ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... murderer; but the jury doesn't indorse my 'pinion, and I gives in." Mrs. Crull, who had been watching Marcus narrowly, and was firmly impressed with the conviction of his innocence, came forward with a warm hand, and tried to think of a proverb suitable to the occasion, but could not. Patty Minford removed the veil from her face, and looked at her benefactor. She made a motion as if to rise and go toward him. Then an expression of doubt stole over her features; and Marcus, who observed her at that moment, knew ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... absurd, certainly. You have heard the proverb— Hold in contempt the innocent words of those Who from their infancy have known no guile:— But trust the treacherous counsels of the man Who makes a ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... be brought face to face with a peril which constantly besets the fugitive of any sort in an age of rapid and easy travel. Under such conditions the smallness of the modern world has passed into a hackneyed proverb. I had scarcely rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and straightened up in the car seat which had served for a bed when some one came down the aisle, a hand was clapped on my shoulder, and a cheery ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... or upon his master's friend who accompanies him to the fields. To all others he is not only cold, but often surly and impertinent. This, indeed, would matter little, if there were not unfortunately a proverb extant, which has led perhaps to more squabbles, duels, and other uncharitableness, than most other causes of dispute. This pugnacious proverb, "Love me, love my dog," being interpreted, signifies, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... peace with the Cinq-Cygnes. It is now thirty years since the affair I am about to speak of took place; it is as old to the present day as the death of Henri IV. (which between ourselves and in spite of the proverb is still a mystery, like so many other historical catastrophes). I can, however, assure you that even if this affair did not concern Madame de Cinq-Cygne it would be none the less curious and interesting. Moreover, it throws light on a celebrated ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... how some women carry a Fate with them. There was a Mrs. Deegie in the Central Provinces whose men invariably fell away and got married. It became a regular proverb with us when I was down there. I remember three men desperately devoted to her, and they all, ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... "Everything that exists upon earth has its ethereal counterpart.'' Christ said: "As a man thinketh so is he.'' A Hindu proverb says: "Man is a creature of reflection; he becomes that upon which he reflects.'' A modern metaphysicist says: "Our thoughts are real substance and leave their images upon our personality, they fill our aura with beauty or ugliness ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... there's another proverb: 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' Tom and I ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... room with a frightened, distracted air. On the table was the book Monsignor had given her, Sin and Its Consequences. But she turned from it with a smile. She did not need anyone to tell her what were the consequences of sin—and the familiar proverb of bringing coals to Newcastle rose up in her mind. At the same moment she caught sight of the clock; it was half-past twelve, and she remembered that in about three hours and a half it would be time to go to St. Joseph's. Then like a flash the question came, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... position of a relative who is bound to watch over your lonely orphanhood. This I say in all sincerity, and with a single purpose, as any kinsman might do. For, after all, I AM a distant kinsman of yours—the seventh drop of water in the pudding, as the proverb has it—yet still a kinsman, and at the present time your nearest relative and protector, seeing that where you had the right to look for help and protection, you found only treachery and insult. As for poetry, I may say that I consider it unbecoming for a man of my years to devote ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... these ministers and people have made a record, worthy of the emulation of the church at large; especially those congregations that seem to take pride in having "itching ears" and the consequent doom of standing vacant and idle half the time, and those perambulating ministers, who remind one of the proverb of the "rolling stone ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... There's a proverb which says, "He laughs longest who laughs last," and we've yet to see who that will be. So far, the men have burnt Balmoral, but that loss is insured against; but they have not bettered their position, and they are ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., terror providing him with wings, as per proverb. Down the lane, at a pace that would have done credit to Barney Oldfield in his Blitzen Benz, the mosquito-like youth sprinted madly, and ever, closer, closer on his trail, sounded that awful "Woof! Woof!" from Caesar ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... more, were scattered between the billiard-room, the smaller drawing-room, where card-tables were set out, and the large drawing-room, given up to conversation and presently to the acting of a proverb by several of the younger people and Mademoiselle Moineau, who played the part of ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... question how to prevent the degeneration of mankind would be a simple and natural one, if history and proverb had not taught us that as often as a new truth appears "the very oxen butt their horns against it." They cannot help this, the "disposition" is natural; for when Pythagoras had found the Master of Arts, Mathesios, he was so overjoyed that he sacrificed one hundred oxen to the ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... feeling a little sore. I daresay I do talk nonsense and like talking it, but no politician who ever lived has a right to tell me so. I intended to greet Gorman when he returned with the proverb about living in glass houses and throwing stones. He came back, smiling radiantly. My ill-humour passed away ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... Hippias and Hipparchus ruled much as he had done, and gave no cause for complaint. One thing they did was to set up mile-stones all over the roads of Attica, each with a bust of Mercury on the top, and a wise proverb carved below the number of the miles. But they grew proud and insolent, and one day a damsel of high family was rudely sent away from a solemn religious procession, because Hipparchus had a quarrel with her brother Harmodius. This only ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Magpies at the door, Saints in the Church, Goats in the Garden, Devils in the House, Angels in the Streets, and Syrens at the Windows; if Nature does not make them appear Beautiful, Art shall, as Paintings and other sophistical Helps; whence comes this Proverb among them, If God make them tall and Fat (a goodly Woman being a Title of great Value among them) they will make themselves fair. In fine, The Gentry are very Rich, live of all Men the most careless and contented Lives, keeping the Poor as Drudges ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... himself, gossip [an intimate friend or companion (obsolete)]," said the elder personage; "it may, perchance, save a rope and break a proverb [refers to the old saw, 'Who is born to be hanged will never ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... out of doors is the greatest part of the journey. Varro teaches us that Latin proverb, Portam itineri longissimam esse. But ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... if you are willing to work for it on my conditions. I've heard that you will each be in business for yourselves in a small way this summer, and I'll make this offer. If each of you boys without any help from any one, will choose a good proverb or text out of the Bible for a business motto, I'll give the wheel to the boy who makes the best choice. You can select any three business men in Bardstown to be the judges; but the proof of a pudding is in the ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... were men of good sense, and estimated the proverb—"a bird in hand is worth two in the bush"—at its true value. It did not require much argument to persuade them to receive a sum of over forty thousand dollars, and give a full discharge to the defendant; and I flattered myself that the matter was all satisfactorily ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... her foot). Don't repeat that hateful proverb! Nothing can make me more angry. I feel like crying when I hear it, too. Now see, ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... musical chair, which seemed so appropriate a niche for him; and however reluctant to leave his favourite normal classes and his adopted home, still when he looked to the future, he was compelled to think of leaving Edinburgh—for the German proverb still held true: 'Kunst geht nach brod;' and if man cannot live by bread alone, neither can the artist live without bread! At this juncture, the Chevalier Neukomm, of European celebrity as a composer and organist, and a valued ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various |
