Read historical proverb records with fixed sources, context and selection boundaries, without treating old sayings as present-day fact or advice.
Browse all published languages. Each work opens only an available, reviewed reading. 667 entries
More flies are caught with a drop of honey than with a tun of vinegar.
Many irons in the fire, some will cool.
Enough is enough of bread and cheese.
February fill dike, be it black or be it white.
"Sour grapes," said the fox when he could not reach them.
Close sits my shirt, but closer my skin.
Let every sheep hang by its own shank.
The heart knoweth its own bitterness.
The chamber of sickness is the chapel of devotion.
One beats the bush and another catches the birds.
A ragged colt may make a good horse.
Never show your teeth when you can't bite.
Before you make a friend, eat a peck of salt with him.
If the deil be laird, you'll be tenant.
"Meikle cry and little woo'," as the deil said when he clipped the sow.
Never put out your arm further than you can easily draw it back again.
He that shoots always right forfeits his arrow.
Give a thief rope enough and he'll hang himself.
A tale never loses in the telling.
It's gude to hae friends baith in heaven and hell.
The longest day will have an end.
A man may make his own dog bite him.
The office shows the man.
Soon crooks the tree that good gambrel will be.