"Proverbs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unworldliness, what I also admired in Scott was his resolute opposition to Antinomianism, and the minutely practical character of his writings. They show him to be a true Englishman, and I deeply felt his influence; and for years I used almost as proverbs what I considered to be the scope and issue of his doctrine, "Holiness rather than peace," and "Growth the only ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... splendid time! Modern young people would have been bored, and voted it "no spread at all." They played Proverbs, and What is my thought like? and everybody tried to bring out their very best, and be as bright and witty and joyous as possible. They had plain cake and fancy cake, and a new kind of dainty crisp crackers; candies, nuts, raisins, and mottoes, which were the greatest fun of all. Afterward, ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Geneva. It is now a Carthusian abbey; and Mr. Addison (Travels into Italy, vol. ii. p. 147, 148, of Baskerville's edition of his works) has celebrated the place and the founder. AEneas Sylvius, and the fathers of Basil, applaud the austere life of the ducal hermit; but the French and Italian proverbs most unluckily attest the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... of the age, once wrote to a contributor, "For goodness' sake, send no more puns; they have all been made!" Indeed, Punch has given us more "pre-historic peeps" of humour than he or Mr. Reed have any notion of. "Bless you," said Punch in his third number, "half the proverbs given to ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... excellent foil to the knight's craze. Sancho is very fond of eating and drinking, is always asking the knight when he is to be put in possession of the island he promised. He salts his speech with most pertinent proverbs, and even with wit of a racy, though sometimes of rather a vulgar savor.—Cervantes, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... modification where the oral tradition assumes a regular or striking form, as is the case with verses, maxims, proverbs. ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... Pope, in spight of Gay, And all that he or they can say; Sing on I must, and sing I will, Of Richmond Lodge and Marble Hill. Last Friday night, as neighbours use, This couple met to talk of news: For, by old proverbs, it appears, That walls have tongues, and ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... no Jubilee Song on "Servants, obey your Masters." We shall leave for the "feeble" imagination of the reader the reason why. The Negroes practically left out of their Jubilee Songs, Jeremiah, Job, Abraham, Isaac, Solomon, Samuel, Ezra, Mark, Luke, John, James, The Psalms, The Proverbs, etc., simply because these subjects did not fall among those taught them ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... us throw our eyes over the broader field of omens, as they offer themselves spontaneously to those who do not seek, or would even willingly evade them. There are few of these, perhaps none, which are not universal in their authority, though every land in turn fancies them (like its proverbs) of local prescription and origin. The death-watch extends from England to Cashmere, and across India diagonally to the remotest nook of Bengal, over a three thousand miles' distance from the entrance of the Indian Punjaub. A hare crossing a man's path ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... language, songs, and popular legends, as well as by the publication of these works in a Review which appears under the title of [Greek: Neoellenika Analekta]. In this collection are published popular songs of modern Greece, riddles, proverbs, distichs, tales, &c. Under the auspices of this same Society is published another Review, bearing the name of the Syllogos, which has already won, by its articles so interesting and full of learning, the first place in the periodical ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... drafts the code of laws that will be found at that time. Only after two thousand years shall Moses write on the origin of things, and the Vedas be arranged in their present form. It will be two-and-a-half thousand years before the Great King of Jerusalem will set in order many proverbs and write books so much resembling, in form and style, that of Ptah-hotep;[4] before the source and summit of European literature will write his world epics. For the space of years between Solomon and ourselves, great though it seem, is ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... little book will be apt to notice very soon that though its title is Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading, the verse occupies nine tenths, the prose being confined to about two hundred proverbs and familiar sayings—some of them, indeed, in rhyme—scattered in groups throughout the book. The reason for this will be apparent as soon as one considers the end in view in the preparation of ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... however, the nominative is the absolute case. He made the best proverbs, him alone excepted, is an expression of Tillotson's. We should now write he alone excepted. The present mode of expression is only to be justified by considering the nominative form to be a dative one, just as in the expression ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... portrait of Herber the loving ascetic; awed by the mystic breath of Crashaw. Then the cavalier poets sang their gallant songs; and Herrick made Dean Prior magic ground by the holy incantation of a verse. And in the old proverbs and homely sayings of the time he found the good and beautiful English life, a time full of grace and dignity and rich merriment. He dived deeper and deeper into his books; he had taken all obsolescence to be his province; in his disgust at the stupid ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... Fielding transferred it to the Haymarket, where, according to Geneste, it was acted in April 1734. As a play, Don Quixote in England has few stage qualities and no plot to speak of. But the Don with his whimsies, and Sancho with his appetite and string of proverbs, are conceived in something of the spirit of Cervantes. Squire Badger, too, a rudimentary Squire Western, well represented by Macklin, is vigorously drawn; and the song of his huntsman Scut, beginning with the fine line "The dusky Night rides down the Sky," has a verse ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... indeed remarkably fond of proverbs. They not only employ them in conversation—and even to a greater degree than the Spaniards, who are noted among Europeans for the number and excellence of their proverbial sayings—but they have a practice of adorning their reception rooms with these sententious ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... particular epoch, a fancy for mutilating or transposing proverbs reigned in the studios. It was thought a triumph to find changes of letters, and sometimes of words, which still kept the semblance of the proverb while giving it a fantastic ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... Prometheus, wherein was a pestilent expression about 'staining a voice,' which met with no quarter. Little did I think that Mr. Campbell would have adopted my fifth form 'sublime'—at least in so conspicuous a situation. 'Sorrow' has been 'dry' (in proverbs), and 'wet' (in sonnets), this many a day; and now it ''stains',' and stains a sound, of all feasible things! To be sure, death-songs might have been stained with that same grief to very good purpose, if Outalissi had clapped down his stanzas ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... we had neither house nor home, nor other necessaries, the Lord so moved the hearts of these and those towards us, that we wanted neither food, nor raiment for ourselves or ours: "There is a Friend which sticketh closer than a Brother" (Proverbs 18.24). And how many such friends have we found, and now living amongst? And truly such a friend have we found him to be unto us, in whose house we lived, viz. Mr. James Whitcomb, a friend unto us near ...
— Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
... a politician, or even a statesman, no matter how astute you are, you can read with profit several times a year the career of David, one of the cleverest politicians and greatest statesmen who ever lived. If you are a business man, the proverbs of Solomon will tone you up ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... Kings—virtually that of all Kinghood, in David, and of all Philosophy, in Solomon: culminating in the Psalms and Proverbs, with the still more close and practical wisdom of Ecclesiasticus ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... already cited. Presumably with a view to maintaining his prestige and keeping his individuality well before the people, he was constantly issuing edicts and proclamations. He was wise enough to understand the proverbs, "L'union fait la force," and "A house divided against itself shall surely fall." Not the least of his talents was that of being able to keep united a force of 30,000 to 40,000 Filipinos for any object. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... it is written I. John ii: "My little children, these things I write unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with God the Father, Jesus Christ, Who is the propitiation of all our sins." And Wisdom xv: "For if we sin, we are Thine, knowing Thy power." And Proverbs xxiv: "For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again." Yes, this confidence and faith must be so high and strong that the man knows that all his life and works are nothing but damnable sins before God's judgment, as it is written, Psalm cxliii: "In thy sight shall no man living be justified"; ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... the Son of God and Messiah quite early in His ministry, while in the earlier part of Mark our Lord's teaching about His Messiahship is far less definite. And the method of teaching is also different. In the Synoptists we find picturesque parables and pointed proverbs, while in John we find long discourses and arguments. In the Synoptists the teaching is generally practical, in John it is much more openly theological. This difference between the Synoptists and St. John can be partly accounted for by the fact ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... nickname as the church's "convocation." We tie her tongue upon the first subject on which she would speak, then impudently call woman a babbler. There is no end, Eusebius, to the wrongs our tongues do the sex. We take up all old, and invent new, proverbs against them. Ungenerous as we are, we learn other languages out of spite, as it were, to abuse them with, and cry out, "One tongue is enough for a woman." We rate them for every thing and at nothing—thus: "He that loseth his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... Common proverbs portray the character of the spinster as peevish, selfish, given to queer fancies, and unpleasant eccentricities. In many a case we are glad to say this is untrue. Instances of noble devotion, broad and generous sympathy, ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... monosyllabic style is often dull, but it is always serious and homely. We can find in our translation of the Bible whole verses that are made up of words of only one syllable. Many of the most powerful passages in Shakespeare, too, are written in monosyllables. The same may be said of hundreds of our proverbs— such as, "Cats hide their claws"; "Fair words please fools"; "He that has most time has none to lose." Great poets, like Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, understand well the fine effect to be produced from the mingling of short and long words— of the homely English ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... mean to say that all the young men go to drinking saloons as soon as they carry their girls home, or as soon as the ball or dance is over. No, many of them go to other places, such as are described in the 5th chapter of Proverbs. Men will not deny this. Who caused these men to go to these places? Shall I answer? Shall I tell the truth? If I do, I must say it is the virtuous wives, daughters, sisters and sweethearts, who have been participating in the dance. Every man knows ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
... men, till it finds them mouldered into the common dust of conversation, and used to stop men's mouths, and patch up theories, to keep out the flaws of opinion. Such, for example, are all popular adages and wise proverbs, which are now resolved into the common mass of thought; their authors forgotten, and having no more an individual being ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... royal appointment, but had only been appointed by the governor ad interim; for the plurality of votes which attest a correct decision and authorize the best opinion, according to the Divine sentence Salus autem ubi multa consilia (Proverbs, ch. 5), were lacking. This has been experienced on various occasions, on which only one auditor has been left in Manila, an arbiter following rather the dictates of his will than that of his understanding, which has the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... Russian readily, but every phrase was formed in German style, which did not, however, trouble him, for it had always been a weakness of his to believe that he spoke Russian perfectly, better indeed than Russians. And he was very fond of using Russian proverbs, always declaring that the Russian proverbs were the best and most expressive sayings in the whole world. I may remark, too, that in conversation, through absent-mindedness he often forgot the most ordinary words, which sometimes ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... transaction more of the appearance of an outward one, should have chosen names usual at that time; just as, in a similar manner, poetry would not be satisfied with invented names used only in certain formulas and proverbs, but makes use of names which would not, at once, be recognised by every one as mere fictions.—[Hebrew: gmr] can only mean "completion" in the passive sense. For Segolate-forms in o are only used to express passive and intransitive notions, and the verb [Hebrew: gmr] is found in the signification ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... have force with some husbands, and some wives,' retorted your father; 'but as I have a firm belief in the Scriptures, it does not affect me. What do the Proverbs say? "The price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies;" and a good ruby is worth even more in the market than a ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... again.... I have some reason to think that, if Gladstone had stayed in, I should, in a few weeks, have been Solicitor-General, and on my way to all sorts of honour and glory.' However, he comforts himself with various proverbs. His favourite saying on these occasions, which were only too common, was 'Patience, and shuffle the cards.' The Gladstone Ministry, however, was patched up, and things looked better presently. 'I am,' ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... it hath brought forth wild grapes?"(109) This complaint clearly applies to the Jews. Yahweh did for the Jewish nation whatever it behooved Him to do lavishly (gratia vere sufficiens), but His kindness was unrequited (gratia mere sufficiens). In the Book of Proverbs He addresses the sinner in these terms: "I called, and you refused: I stretched out my hand, and there was none that regarded."(110) What does this signify if not the complete sufficiency of grace? The proffered grace remained inefficacious simply because the sinner ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... Scripture says also. Consider but this one thing,—that there is a whole book in the Bible written to prove this one thing,—that our good and bad deeds are repaid us with interest in this life—the Proverbs of Solomon I mean—in which there is little or no mention of heaven or hell, or any world to come. It is all one noble, and awful, and yet cheering sermon on that one text, "The righteous shall be recompensed in the earth, much more the wicked ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... own words just what makes a proverb. A proverb has been defined as "a wise saying in a few words." At any rate, if it is not always wise, the person who first said it and the people who repeat it think it is. Most proverbs are very old, and take us back, just as we saw that words formed from the names of animals do, to the early days before ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... plays is racy of the soil, and when it need be, eloquent with the eloquence that is almost always in the English of the Irish. It is full of wise saws and proverbs, quips and quirks of expression, the picturesquenesses and homelinesses of speech that are characteristic of a peasant to whom talk is the half of life. These range from sayings like those of the clowns of Elizabethan drama, such as "He had great wisdom I tell you, being silly-like, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... the gospel and the psalms. They desired first of all that he should be a good Christian and a bearer of the faith—but they wearied the growing boy with long hours of study and monotonous recitals of religious hymns and proverbs when he was eager to be ranging the hills or playing with his fellows. At that time he had no particular desire to be a priest, and, like most boys, was far more interested in the stories of heroes than the stories of saints, preferring to hear of the wild Scottish chiefs and the ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... ludicrously turns Belford's arguments against him. Resistance inflames him. Why the gallant is preferred to the husband. Gives a piece of advice to married women. Substance of his letter to Lord M. desiring him to give the lady to him in person. His view in this letter. Ridicules Lord M. for his proverbs. Ludicrous advice to Belford in relation to his dying uncle. What physicians should do when a patient ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... of the truth at law would succeed much less frequently than it does if it were not for the fact that men find it very difficult to keep secrets. This essentially notable and not clearly understood circumstance is popularly familiar. Proverbs of all people deal with it and point mainly to the fact that keeping secrets is especially difficult for women. The Italians say a woman who may not speak is in danger of bursting; the Germans, that the burden of secrecy affects her health and ages her prematurely; the English say similar ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... paradox," said his brother, with something rather like a sneer, "you seem to be going in for journalese proverbs. Do you believe that ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... at which they have arrived in this Art. How many Devices have been made use of, to render this bitter Potion palatable? Some convey their Instructions to us in the best chosen Words, others in the most harmonious Numbers, some in Points of Wit, and others in short Proverbs. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... you wish me to keep her for ever in my service, for her to torture my ears incessantly, to infringe all the laws of custom and reason, by a barbarous accumulation of errors of speech, and of garbled expressions tacked together with proverbs dragged out of the gutters ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... by the same spirit. There again we meet with the glorification of the one true God of Israel, and the denunciation of pagan idolatry; and while the author writes in Greek and shows the influence of Greek ideas, he makes the Psalms and the Proverbs his models of literary form. "Love righteousness," he begins, "ye that be judges of the earth; think ye of the Lord with a good mind and in singleness of heart seek ye Him." His appeal for godliness is addressed to the Gentile world in a language which they understood, ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... proverbs," the girl laughed down at us. "I don't know what you are up to, but I like you. You don't look as austere as you talk. And I don't mind your asceticism. If you don't appreciate the entertainment ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Psalm xxxv, 10: "Lord, all my bones shall bless Thee, which deliverest the poor from the tyrant." And is there a greater tyrant than the evil leaven? And on Proverbs xxv, 21: "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat." That is to say, if the evil leaven hunger, give him the bread of wisdom of which it is spoken in Proverbs ix., and if he be thirsty, give him the water of which it is spoken ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... kindly and without anger, but I hope to preach these ideas to your people, and as I take my text from your national hymn, they must listen to me. Then there is another common expression among you which shows, as so many proverbs do, the fundamental truth. When a story is incredible you say 'Tell that to the marines,' signifying that only a marine would be stupid enough to believe it. Now what is a marine? As the Anglian poet says, he is 'soldier and sailor too,' in other words, ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... seeing that significance can refrain from meddling and renounce his personal wish directed to something else. And above all," thought Prince Andrew, "one believes in him because he's Russian, despite the novel by Genlis and the French proverbs, and because his voice shook when he said: 'What they have brought us to!' and had a sob in it when he said he would 'make them ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and refining the ballad, so that it shall become—like the language, the proverbs, the folklore and nursery tales, and the traditional music of a nation—the reflection of the history and character of the race itself, if it is to be genuine, must go on unconsciously. As soon as the ballad is written down—at least as soon as it is fixed in print—the ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... thinkers. In this kind of folklore the oral and the written literature of Japan is rich to a degree that would require a large book to exemplify. To the subject as a whole no justice could be done within the limits of a single essay. But for certain classes of proverbs and proverbial phrases something can be done within even a few pages; and sayings related to Buddhism, either by allusion or derivation, form a class which seems to me particularly worthy of study. Accordingly, with the help of a Japanese friend, I have selected ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... in every Eastern language beginning with Hebrew; Proverbs xxvi. 27, "Whoso diggeth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... in the memory of the reader. It is a kind of mnemonic writing, and it has been used by missionaries for similar purposes, and with considerable success. Thus, in a translation of the Bible in the Massachusetts language by Eliot, the verses from 25 to 32 in the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs, are expressed by 'an ant, a coney, a locust, a spider, a river (symbol of motion), a lion, a greyhound, a he-goat and king, a man foolishly lifting himself to take hold of the heavens.' No doubt these symbols would help the reader to remember the proper order of the verses, but ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... say? Where is the use of effort? Of what benefit was Plato's existence to the republic? Of what assistance has the great Tracy Tupper been if men must still, despite all his proverbs, remain what they are? O curum hominibus! ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... beloved brethren, as gaudy insects, flutter out life's little day, bound to the chariot wheels of vanity, whirling in the vortex of dissipation, until at length we lie moaning over the bitter dregs of the intoxicating draught." Some of these became household proverbs at "the Folly," under the title of "Rigdum Funnidoses," and might well be an extreme distress to the good, reverent, and ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has a prairie grave. The King and Queen lie low, And aged Grandma Silver Dreams, Four tombstones in a row. But still in snow and sunshine Stands our ancestral hall. Agate is the dome, Cornelian the wall. And legends walk about, And proverbs, with proud airs. Ghouls are in the cellar, But ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... sermons, all were employed to stimulate the general agitation and to brand with atrocity the conduct of the Ministry. The tombstone erected over the murdered man Allan chronicled his inhuman murder "by Scottish detachments from the Army," and quoted from Proverbs the words, "Take away the wicked ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of a regale. It is a vile cold-scrag-of-mutton sophism; a lie palmed upon the palate, which knows better things. If nothing else could be said for a feast, this is sufficient, that from the superflux there is usually something left for the next day. Morally interpreted, it belongs to a class of proverbs, which have a tendency to make us undervalue money. Of this cast are those notable observations, that money is not health; riches cannot purchase every thing: the metaphor which makes gold to be mere muck, with the morality which traces ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... proverbs—some are good and some are not— But the Teuton was misled who cried, "Strike while the entree's hot!" Like readers with no book-marks, all the rebels lost their place, And vanished out of Chelsea in their dress-suits ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... let his pen run into such rhymes as these, which he generally passes off as old proverbs" (Scott). Many of the charming scraps of "Old Ballads" and "Old Plays" at the head of Scott's own chapters are in reality the result ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... problems of life displaced impassioned and imaginative thought. Prophecy gave way to philosophy. The sages became the teachers of men. The third class of books in the Old Testament Canon, known by the Jews as the Writings, belong to this period; Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Jonah, Daniel, etc. To this period also belongs the Apocrypha, which contains some noble books. These varied writings show, when critically studied, a direct bearing on the problems that we know ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... she have seen exactly what was passing in his mind, Mary would probably have objected to the kind of affection which he felt for his cousin at this particular time. The joke about cousinly love is probably as old, and certainly as true, as Solomon's proverbs. However, as matters stood, it could be no concern of Mary's what his feelings were towards Katie, or any ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... lb. It is a good deal warmer to-day, and has been thawing in the sun; if the cold and the siege had continued much longer, the Prussians would have found us all in bed. It is a far easier thing to cut down a tree than to make it burn. Proverbs are not always true; and I have found to my bitter experience of late that the proverb that "there is no smoke without a fire" is untrue. The Tupper who made it never ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... sayings have passed into proverbs: for example, that "genius is but a supreme capacity for taking pains." Another and still more celebrated passage shall be given in its entirety ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... 'maist eneuch, for he's like a roarin' lion an' a ragin' bear amang the people, an' that sin' ever ye gaed. Bow o' Meal said i' the meetin' the ither nicht 'at he bude to be the verra man, the wickit ruler propheseed o' sae lang sin syne i' the beuk o' the Proverbs. Eh! it's an awfu' thing to be ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... the sections may be placed in any order. In the case of number 2, the above arrangement gives a clue to the proverb, and therefore in writing out your "sections" it will be found that for short proverbs it will be desirable to place the syllables in such a manner as to give the slightest indication of the sentence; whilst in longer proverbs the alphabetical ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of the wrong sort, whilst that which flooded Melbourne from 1851 to 1861 was eminently adventurous and enterprising; that Melbourne having achieved the premier position, Sydney has, with all its later advantages, found the truth of the proverbs: 'A stern chase is a long chase,' and 'To him ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... times to the "Ruins," and therefore should have been lucky. I was, however, the reverse, both as to seeing anything of the ruins, and also the particular object which brought me there. I think, myself, proverbs are very deceitful, and should, like dreams, be read by contrary; some are utterly unintelligible; as, for instance—will any one tell me what this one signifies?—"Sweet words butter no parsnips." I thought parsnips (and, being fond of vegetables, I should like to know) were generally seasoned ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... days of the drive, Newmark, to the surprise of everybody, stayed with the work. Some of these days were very disagreeable. April rains are cold and persistent—the proverbs as to showers were made for another latitude. Drenched garments are bad enough when a man is moving about and has daylight; but when night falls, and the work is over, he likes a dry place and a change with which ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... mother. Our gunner, Mr Hockey, who was somewhat superstitious, now declared that he had dreamed a dream which foreboded disaster. The substance of it I never could learn, nor did he say a word about the matter till some time had passed and the boats did not appear. He was a man of proverbs, and remarked that "a pitcher which goes often to the well gets broken at last," by which he insinuated that as we had been hitherto successful in our expeditions, a reverse might be expected. All the boats had been sent away. The Captain's gig was under repair, but there was a small dinghy ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... take as our text this morning," announced the absent-minded clergyman, consulting his memorandum, "the sixth and seventh verses of the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs." Never suspecting that his vivacious son and heir had found the memorandum in his study on the previous night, and, knowing that his papa had composed a sermon celebrating the increased severity of dry law enforcement, had diabolically changed the chapter and verse numerals to indicate ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... was by the ancient Hebrews often called Wisdom, and was said to be everywhere sounding and searching throughout the earth, seeking some response from the sons of men. The eighth chapter of the Book of Proverbs begins, "Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?" The writer then pictures wisdom as a beautiful woman standing "in the top of the high places, by the way in the places of the paths." She sounds her ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... your best foot foremost. The proverb is a false one—as many proverbs are. We will dynamite them afterwards, and electrify them last of all. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... one over and over all his life, and but for this, fewer good stories would survive. The pleasure derived from humour, while it lasts, is greater than that from sentiment or wisdom; hence we repeat it more in daily converse than poetry or proverbs, and the constant reproduction of it until it is reduced to a mere phantom, causes its influence to appear more transient than ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... that buildeth his house all of sallows,* *willows And pricketh his blind horse over the fallows, And suff'reth his wife to *go seeke hallows,* *make pilgrimages* Is worthy to be hanged on the gallows." But all for nought; I *sette not a haw* *cared nothing for* Of his proverbs, nor of his olde saw; Nor would I not of him corrected be. I hate them that my vices telle me, And so do more of us (God wot) than I. This made him wood* with me all utterly; *furious I woulde not forbear* him in no case. *endure Now will I say you sooth, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... discussing does not decide the question either. Everything in this world is relative and approximate. There are people who can be demoralized even by children's books, and who read with particular pleasure the piquant passages in the Psalms and in Solomon's Proverbs, while there are others who become only the purer from closer knowledge of the filthy side of life. Political and social writers, lawyers, and doctors who are initiated into all the mysteries of human sinfulness are not reputed to be immoral; realistic writers are often more ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... the tent of Holofernes in the whole pomp of her charms, and appareled with the most elaborate attention to splendor of effect, for the purpose of captivating the hostile general, did not omit this ornament. Even the Jewish Proverbs show how highly it was valued; and that it continued to be valued in later times, appears from the ordinances of the Thalmud, II. 21, in respect to the parts of the female wardrobe which were allowed to be worn ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... proverbs without reason would be like trees without roots. Stop and think: sometimes a ladder breaks or slips, which is bad for the climber—and bad for any one who happens to be under that ladder just then. And sometimes a painter's heavy paintpot falls—and woe to him who walks under the ladder then, ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... any thing very solid behind"—an observation which so profoundly impresses his landlady's fancy, that she makes a pencil memorandum of it forthwith, in her great family Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... them and marking them, with the stamp of his peculiar genius. As might be expected, they are chiefly directed to instill the precepts of industry and frugality. On ceasing to edit the almanac in 1757 Franklin gathered together the best of these proverbs and wove them into a continuous narrative, which he pretends to have heard spoken at an auction by an old man called Father Abraham. This speech of Father Abraham became immediately famous, was reprinted in England, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... Athos. "There is a popular proverb to the effect that it is only mountains that never meet; and popular proverbs contain sometimes a wonderful ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... superstitious. She had a wonderful budget of fables. Before I was six years old, I was erudite in that primitive literature in which the legends of all nations are traced to a common fountain,—Puss in Boots, Tom Thumb, Fortunio, Fortunatus, Jack the Giant-Killer; tales, like proverbs, equally familiar, under different versions, to the infant worshippers of Budh and the hardier children of Thor. I may say, without vanity, that in an examination in those venerable classics I ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... true that, in their own blundering way, when their interests are sharply at stake, they do observe, and they change their ways accordingly. Therefore they appear to us at one time hopelessly brutish; at another time we are amazed at their ingenuity and their mental activity (myths, legends, proverbs, maxims). If the loss or pain is great enough, the savage man is capable of astounding cleverness to escape it. After animal breeding began men had ample opportunity to observe the effects of close inbreeding. There is more doubt now about the penalties ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... I happened on a collection of Bulgarian proverbs of which my memory retains but two, yet each an abiding joy. In a lecture on English Literature in our Universities you will certainly not miss to apply the first, which runs, 'Many ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... or those nearest to one. While her husband performed his noble work in the care of souls, she pursued her career within the sphere where it was so allotted. As a housewife she was notable; to her might be applied the words of King Lemuel, in the Proverbs of Solomon, celebrating and describing the good wife, "and her works praised her in the gates." As a neighbor she was generous and sympathetic; she stretched out her hand to the poor and needy; she was at once a guardian and a minister of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... his people three thousand proverbs. He wrote a thousand and five songs; one of them which is called the "Song of Songs," or the "Song of Solomon," and which has a place in the Bible, having a depth of beautiful meaning, which only the very wise can understand. He ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... a scholar and not a practical politician. Therefore I can only give you my views as a man of letters. As I see it, the War in Europe is really one between Right and Might, or in other words, between Morality and Savagery. Our proverbs run to this effect: "Every one should sweep the snow in front of his door and leave alone the frost on the roof of his neighbor," and that "when the neighbors are fighting, close your door." These proverbs have been used by the anti-war party in China as arguments against China's entrance into ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... sounds a horn, which is a signal for all within hearing to lay hold of something that cannot be blown away, and cling to it till the wind falls. This may happen in three days or in nine, according to the popular proverbs. "The spectacle of the sea," says Dall' Ongaro, in a note to one of his ballads, "while the Bora blows, is sublime, and when it ceases the prospect of the surrounding hills is delightful. The air, purified by the rapid current, clothes them with a rosy veil, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... Popular Superstitions, Popish Credulity, Delusions, Ecstacies, Fanaticisms, and Impostures; Astrology, Divination, Revelations, and Prophecies; Necromancy, Sorcery, and Witchcraft; Infatuation, Diabolical Possession, and Enthusiasm; Proverbs, Old Sayings, and Vulgar Errors; the Household Book of Sir Ed. Coke, Original MS.; Early English Poetry, MS. temp. James I.; Grammatical Treatises printed by W. de Worde; Facetiae; Works on Marriage Ceremonies, the Intercourse of the Sexes, and the Philosophy of Marriage; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... type of the disappointment which sooner or later always overtakes the man who attempts to accomplish ideal good by material means. Sancho, on the other hand, with his proverbs, is the type of the man with common sense. He always sees things in the daylight of reason. He is never taken in by his master's theory of enchanters,—although superstitious enough to believe such things possible,—but ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... professed to be able to get at all the Count's plans and movements, and who could apprise Riccabocca at once should his retreat be discovered. "Forewarned is forearmed," said he to himself, in one of the proverbs common to all nations. However, as with his usual sagacity he came to reflect upon the alarming intelligence conveyed to him by Randal, viz., that the Count sought his daughter's hand, he divined that there was some strong ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... thy house—no nobleman's more fair! 'Tis newly built with timber of the best, All grooved and fitted with the nicest skill; Its many glistening windows tell of comfort! 'Tis quarter'd o'er with' scutcheons of all hues, And proverbs sage, which passing travellers Linger to read, and ponder o'er ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... appeal to the common people, he purposed to popularize the books and to transcribe them in a purer and more idiomatic Danish than the accepted literary language of the day, a Danish to be based on the dialects of the common people, the folk-songs, popular proverbs, and the old hymns. It was a bold undertaking, comparable to the work of Luther in modelling the language of the German Bible after the speech of the man in the street and the mother at the cradle, or to the ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... I ain't a-goin' to marry," repeated the captain; "though why a stout young feller like me, just turned sixty-four, shouldn't marry, is more than I can see. You know the old proverbs, lass—'It's never too late to marry'; 'Never ventur', never give in'; 'John Anderson my jo John, when we ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... in the Spanish laws, but the particulars of which are not stated; and they were to cultivate the gift of speech to the utmost possible extent, and never to lose anything which might be obtained by a loose and deceiving tongue, to encourage which they had many excellent proverbs, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... thy neighbours house is on fire, take tent to thy awn."—("Scottish Proverbs: Gathered together by David Fergusson, sometime Minister at Dunfermline," &c. Edinburgh, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... book were German proverbs and "Idiomatic Phrases," by which latter would appear to be meant in all languages, "phrases for the use of idiots":—"A sparrow in the hand is better than a pigeon on the roof."—"Time brings roses."—"The eagle does not catch flies."—"One should ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... and sixpence. These were the highest prices obtained. Many of the volumes went for a few shillings—the first edition of The Dictes or Sayings for fifteen shillings, Chaucer's Book of Fame for nine shillings and twopence, and The Moral Proverbs of Christine de Pisan for four shillings and tenpence. Mr. Blades does not make any mention of Thomas Rawlinson's Caxtons in his life of ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... pageant. Noah's unwilling wife in the Chester Deluge, and Mak's canny wife in the Wakefield shepherd's play, where the sheep-stealing scenes reveal a born Yorkshire humorist, offer a pair of gossips not easy to match for rude comedy. Mak's wife, like the shepherd's in the same pastoral, utters proverbs with every other breath: "A woman's avyse helpys at the last!" "So long goys the pott to the water, at last comys ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... from behind a rock about a dozen yards from the sandy shore. It was swimming as easily as a dog, in spite of what old proverbs say about pigs and the water, and it was evidently making eager efforts to reach the sands and rush after its companions, which had probably been making a breakfast off shell-fish, and were now ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... dear, it is the proverb of proverbs; Apollo's proverb, and the sun's;—but do you think you can know yourself by looking into yourself? Never. You can know what you are, only by looking out of yourself. Measure your own powers with those of others; compare your own interests with those of others; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... denies charges; urges women not to "scramble" for office; Book of Proverbs; constancy of purpose; women have nothing to do with Reform parties; objects to calling God the author of Civil Government; men trying to lift themselves by their bootstraps; no time for Speculation; ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... what it cost the young man which Solomon speaks of in the 7th of the Proverbs, that was enticed by a harlot, 'With her much fair speech she' won him, and 'caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him,' till he went after her 'as an ox to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks'; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... appellant to lift the other which he threw down. It was not until the reign of George II. that the statutes against witchcraft were repealed. As for the English Court of Chancery, we know that its antiquated abuses form one of the staples of common proverbs and popular literature. So the laws and the lawyers have to be watched perpetually by public opinion as ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... began by quoting humorously from the Proverbs: "Where no council is, the people fall, but in a multitude ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... not give you any advice at all. I won't. Instead I'll give you one of Father's pet proverbs. It isn't an elegant one, but he is very fond of repeating it. 'There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it to death with butter.' There! you will admit ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is perceived in the speech of the genuine Florentine. Quaint proverbs, not always of scrupulous refinement, old-world phrases, local allusions, are stuffed into the conversation of your real citizen or citizeness of Firenze la Gentile as thickly as the beads in the vezzo di corallo on the neck of a contadina. And above all, the accent—the ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... be the basis of his philosophy, he was as busy and as painstaking in fashioning the instruments by which they were to be expressed; and in these papers we have the records and specimens of this preparation. He was a great collector of sentences, proverbs, quotations, sayings, illustrations, anecdotes, and he seems to have read sometimes simply to gather phrases and apt words. He jots down at random any good and pointed remark which comes into his thought ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... beckoned to Leonard to follow him into the parlor; and after conversing with him kindly, and at some length, and packing up, as it were, a considerable provision of wisdom in the portable shape of aphorisms and proverbs, the sage left him alone for a few moments. Riccabocca then returned with his wife, and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... established and respected maxims, and to express their own sense of what was either proper or improper conduct, sometimes in the more artificial form of apologues, like what are called the fables of Aesop; and sometimes in the more simple one of apophthegms or wise sayings, like the proverbs of Solomon, the verses of Theognis and Phocyllides, and some part of the works of Hesiod. They might continue in this manner, for a long time, merely to multiply the number of those maxims of prudence and morality, without even attempting ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... from Nature in his plays are original, and rather keen and lightning-like than elaborate, often with the terseness of proverbs; ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... I looked into one of that fellow Charteris's books the other day—that chap you had here last week. It was bally rot—proverbs standing on their heads and grinning like dwarfs in a condemned street-fair! Who wants to be told that impropriety is the spice of life and that a roving eye gathers remorse? You may call that sort of ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... Lime-house and finished off in the Minories, was just the sort of thing a fool would do. And he insisted on her reading all the society novels as they came out—you know the sort I mean,—where everybody snaps everybody else's head off, and all the proverbs are upside down; people leave them about the hotels when they've done with them, and one gets into the habit of dipping into them when one's nothing better to do. His hope was that she might, with pains, get to talk like these books. That ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... my boy,' replied the Captain, 'in the Proverbs of Solomon you will find the following words, "May we never want a friend in need, nor a bottle to give him!" When found, made ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... there are more lessons in the Book of Proverbs than most of us care to learn. There is a lesson in every verse of it, and a shrewd one. Certain I am, that for a practical, business man, who has to do his duty and to make his way in this world, there is no guide so safe as these same Proverbs of Solomon. ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... who were once his fellow-workers, Craddock is an oracle," he went on. "His influence is not unlike Joan Lowrie's. It is the influence of a strong mind over weaker ones. His sharp sarcastic speeches are proverbs among the Rigganites; he amuses them and can make them listen to him. When he holds up 'Th' owd parson' to their ridicule, he sweeps all before him. He can undo in an hour what I have struggled a year to accomplish. He was a collier himself until he became superannuated, ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she learned the fables and the sayings of the sea,—the proverbs about its deafness, its avarice, its treachery, its terrific power,—especially one that haunted her for all time thereafter: Si quieres aprender a orar, entra en el mar (If thou wouldst learn to pray, go to the sea). She learned why the sea is salt,—how ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... necessary to go any farther to collect flower to make a bouquet. With forced gentle manner I reproached some of them, ordering to observe the rule, "vedere e non toccare." It go in force while I am present, not so in my absence. Those that made proverbs, their names ought to be immortal. Here for one, "When the cat is gone, the rats dance." How much true is in the Say. Every visitor like the place profane or not ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... that castle; but the bowman only bowed and answered with a proverb of Spain, not easily carried so far from its own soil to thrive in our language, but signifying that the morrow showeth all things. He was silent then, for he knew that there was no way to a direct answer through those proverbs, and after a while perhaps there came to him some of Serafina's trustfulness. By evening they came to a wide ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... host, and continuing in proverbs: "'They began to ring the bell for Vespers, but the priest's wife forbade it. The priest went visiting, and the ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... puzzled and impressed the wise man that wrote the nineteenth verse of the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs. ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... gift, the remembrance of your ancient proverb: 'The Sword is the Soul of the Samurai.' And then it seemed to me that in the very choice of that exquisite souvenir you had symbolised something of your own souls. For we English also have some famous sayings and proverbs about swords. Our poets call a good blade 'trusty' and 'true'; and of our best friend we say, 'He is true as steel'—signifying in the ancient sense the steel of a perfect sword—the steel to whose temper a warrior could trust his honour and his life. And so in your rare ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... talking to his class about that passage in Proverbs, which says, "Buy the truth and sell it not." "He who buys the truth," said he, "makes a good bargain. Can any of you recollect any instance of a bad bargain, mentioned in Scripture?" "I do," replied one of his scholars:—"Esau made a bad bargain, when he sold his birth-right for a ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... this from Heywood, in his Old Sawes and Adages: and Philpot introduces it into the Proverbs collected ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... if the foregoing pages have in the least degree contributed to the reader's entertainment, or initiated him into any mystery of CITY CRIMES heretofore unknown—and if this tale, founded on fact, has served to illustrate the truth of the ancient proverbs that 'honesty is the best policy' and 'virtue is its own reward'—then is the author amply repaid for his time and toil, and he tenders to the indulgent public his ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... have noticed how often in those parts of the Bible which are likely to be oftenest opened when people look for guidance, comfort, or help in the affairs of daily life, namely, the Psalms and Proverbs, mention is made of the guilt attaching to the Oppression of the poor. Observe: not the neglect of them, but the Oppression of them: the word is as frequent as it is strange. You can hardly open either ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... good-nature of her eyes; she knew human nature, although no one judged it with more charity than she. Her old men were her brothers, her young men were her sons, all children were her children. Solomon foresaw her in the most engaging of his Proverbs. Her maid-servants arose at six in the morning and called her blessed, for though her rule was strict it was just and loving. She was at once the mistress and the friend of her household; no Yankee captain so audacious that he ventured to oppose her law; no cynic so cold as not to be melted ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Curious Books; containing numerous Works on the Occult Sciences, America, Asia, Books of Prints, curious Quarto Tracts, English Black Letter, Early Printed Works, Proverbs, Facetiae, &c. &c. May be had on application, or by forwarding Two ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... Proverbs ought to be respected; 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 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... large portion of the Sermon on the Mount. From Deuteronomy vi. 4, 5, and Leviticus xix. 18 he drew his marvellous epitome of all law and duty. In the wisdom literature, and especially in the book of Proverbs, he found many of those practical truths which he applied to life with new authority and power. From the same storehouse of crystallized experience he derived certain of those figures which he expanded into his ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... edition appeared, followed by a third in 1697. To the poems is appended Francis Brokesby's "Observations on the Dialect and Pronunciation of Words in the East Riding of Yorkshire," which he had previously sent to Ray,(1) together with a collection of Yorkshire proverbs and a "Clavis," or Glossary, also by Brokesby. The author of these two poems, who signs himself" G. M. Gent" on the title-page, is generally supposed to be a certain George Meriton, an attorney by profession, though Francis ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... Cardenas, furnished the occasion. This young man had been despatched to Spain to get the Bulls. Upon the voyage he seems to have conducted himself with scant propriety. On his return, when passing Corrientes, he took on board a lady whom Charlevoix, quite in the spirit of the author of the Book of Proverbs, describes as 'une jeune femme bien faite'. Having some qualms of conscience, he put on a secular dress, and on nearing Asuncion put his religious habit over it. In such a climate this double costume must have been inconvenient, and why he should ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... form marks an epoch that must have gradually extended through ages, the written literature of which has only survived in a few fragments of symbolical mythology and certain pithy sentences which have passed into popular proverbs. With the extant literature of the Vril-ya the inflectional stratum commences. No doubt at that time there must have operated concurrent causes, in the fusion of races by some dominant people, and the rise of some great literary phenomena by which the form of language ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... or almost of his sitting up, though he made some awkward attempts at the latter posture. His sole amusement was the perusal of his old friend Titus Livius, varied by occasionally scratching Latin proverbs and texts of Scripture with his knife on the roof and walls of his fortalice, which were of sandstone. As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, 'it made,' as he said, coiling himself up with an air of snugness and comfort which contrasted strangely with his situation, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... in the Mission House an opportunity to recover his self-respect. But whoever the guest was, soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, apothecary, ploughboy, or thief, he was judged at the Mission House as a man. Some of the visitors repaid their host by theft or fraud; but when they did, nobody uttered proverbs or platitudes about mistaken kindness. If one lame dog bit the hand that was helping him over the stile, the next dog that came limping along was helped ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... like this: I am something of an authority on illuminated manuscripts. I've had to wade through hundreds of them. That is the method by which I became acquainted with the Scriptures. The Song of Songs! Lord love you, if that isn't pure pagan, what is? I prefer the Proverbs. Ask Cleigh if he has that manuscript with him. It's in a remarkable state of preservation. Remember? 'There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath |
