Thread: Proverbs.

Heres a bunch of Latin Proverbs. I couldn't find their meanings, but alot are understandable anyway:

Latin Proverbs

Better late than never.

Nothing dries sooner than tears. Latin Proverb

Fashion is more powerful than any tyrant.

Glory is the shadow of virtue.

If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.

Laugh at life; don't cry over it.

Fear, not kindness, restrains the wicked.

Don't whistle and drink at the same time.

When healty, we all have wonderful advice for the sick.

What you didn't hope for happens more often than what you hoped for.

It's too late to ask advice when danger comes.

Nobody underestimates his own troubles.

When you have just climbed out of a deep well and are perched on top, you are in the greatest danger of falling in again.

A man needs a good mirror to scrutinize his heart as well as his face.

It is stupid to complain about misfortune that is your own fault.

It is better to profit by a horrible example than to be one.

Life is short, but troubles make it longer.

The man you want to keep bound to you should be chained by food and drink.

Everybody lives; not everybody deserves to.

If fortune wants to do you in, she makes you stupid.

The man who inspects the saddle blanket instead of the horse is stupid; most stupid is the man who judges another man by his clothes or his circumstances.

Fortune is glass; just when it gleams brightest it shatters.

There is no point in seeking a remedy for a thunderbolt.

Nothing moves faster than gossip.

A fellow who gets more than he deserves wants more than he gets.

The great thing is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet.

A fire can't throw a great light without burning something.

No man loses honor who had any in the first place.

Speech is given to many; intelligence to few.

The silence of a stupid man looks like wisdom.

Thrift is misery with a good press agent.

Whatever you want to teach, be brief.

Good sense, not age, brings wisdom.

The bigger the undertaking, the trickier it is.

Honesty is praised while it starves.

It is very important if a man is wise or only looks it.

He who is everywhere is nowhere.

It is dangerous to guard something everybody wants.

A traveller with empty pockets can whistle in a robber's face.

It is best to do favors for people with good memories.

Who will watch the watchmen?

It's easier to do a wrong than to endure one.

Easy tears show treachery, not grief.

God rewards virtue; he shouldn't have to furnish it.

Anger is the one thing made better by delay.

Be careful about starting something you may regret.

The time will come when looking in the mirror grieves you, and that grief will be another cause of wrinkles.

You ought to watch whatever you can lose.

Beauty and wisdom don't mix.

What you want to keep secret, tell no one. If you could not control your urge to tell, how can you expect silence from anyone else?

It is better to trust in courage than luck.

Any man can make a mistake; only a fool keeps making the same one.

Make lots of promises: anybody can be rich in them.

Why shouldn't a fellow laugh while he tells the truth?

Evil natures never lack teachers.

Even those who don't want to kill anybody would like the power to do it.

Tears for somebody else's troubles dry quickly.

Going to Hell is easy; it's coming back that's hard!

What hurt him most was his outrageous opinion of his own worth.

We turn virtues upside down and want to soil a clean vessel. If any honest man lives among us, we call him slow and stupid.

Since you can't copy our pleasures, you begrudge them.

Men easily believe what they want to.

In Rome you want the country; in the country you brag about town.

A few are unwilling to sin; everybody knows how.

Lust wants whatever it can have.

It is stupid to stop in the middle of a crime.

A liar better have a good memory.

When a bad man pretends to be good, he's at his worst.

Anything we haven't seen before is marvellous.

Always depend on people to think the worst.

The sick man does himself no favor when he makes the doctor his heir.

No luck is so good that you can't find some complaint.

A fellow who won't do a favor has no right to ask for one.

Make me chaste and pure, but not yet.

When a man says he did you a favor, he is asking for one.

Nothing is so well fortified that money cannot caputre it.

Money should be mastered, not served.

While a lot of those Latin proverbs are just nearly directly translated into Dutch and used here, for me it's not that special.

Though the Egypt proverbs, I'd never heard about them and they're quite interesting indeed.

"Everything is both a blessing and a curse".

"One should not bite the hand that feeds one".

"Still waters run deep".

"One should not piss into the wind".

"Where there's smoke, there's fire".

"If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck..."

The early bird catches the worm.

A blind man isn't afraid of ghosts.

I did a search for English proverbs on Wikipedia, and found that a lot of the proverbs there seem to be some of the best known ones. Or maybe that's just me since I live in England, I've definately heard some of these in American movies before though. I dunno, you be the judge.

All good things come to an end.

All's well that ends well.

All's fair in love and war.

Good things come to those who wait.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Ask no questions and hear no lies.

As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.

A woman's work is never done.

Before criticizing a man, walk a mile in his shoes.

Boys will be boys.

Birds of a feather flock together.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't (The Simpsons!&#33

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

Don't cry over spilt milk.

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

When I looked through them these were just a small fraction of the ones that i'd heard of before. Has anyone from anywhere other than England heard of a lot of these?

*Literal translation: "The bullet that doesn't hit makes a noise"
Hidden meaning: Accusations that don't stand still hurt
Applicability: To comment on damage caused by a scandal (for example).[/b]

I like this one, a lot. A few of them do look like spins on the current 'trendy' proverbs (har har) but those Egyptains sure were smart. Except for the whole pyramid thing. That was just weird.

EDIT: I hope by bullets they meant rocks or something. Grand Poobahs with AK-47s? I think not.

Originally Posted by Kaniaz

but those Egyptains sure were smart. Except for the whole pyramid thing. That was just weird.
[/b]

Well, that was the aliens' idea I assume.

"May as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb".


I found this one in a Thomas Hardy novel. He found it still current in "Sussex" England where it was reminiscent of the time when the law would hang any man found stealing sheep. So the sense of the Proverb was that if one were to steal anyway, one might as well steal the most that one can at a time, or, more generally, that it was meant to convey the meaning "Anything worth doing is worth doing well".

But "may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" is inherently more ludicrous and possessed of more manly swagger than the more pedantic "Anything worth doing... blah blah blah... That is something that one would tell a classroom of children, but when men speak among themselves, then "Might as well be hung for a Sheep as a Lamb" would be preferred.