Proverb Quotes

I believe we have a responsibility not only to our contemporaries but also to future generations a responsibility to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us, and without which none of us can survive. That means we must do much more, and urgently, to prevent or slow down climate change. Everyday that we do nothing, or too little, imposes higher costs on our children and our childrens children. Of course, it reminds me of an African proverb the earth is not ours but something we hold in trust for future generations. I hope my generation will be worthy of that trust.

Kofi Atta Annan

The Chinese have a proverb: If two men feed a horse, it will lose weight; if two men keep a boat, it will soon leak. What is everybodys job is nobodys job. If every Christian is a missionary, missionary work is bound to suffer. It is correct to say that every Christian is, or should be, a witness. It is not correct to say that every Christian is a missionary.

J. Herbert Kane

For when men labor they keep out of mischief. You remember the old proverb--An idle mind is the Devils workshop.

George Q. Cannon

England is a paradise for women and hell for horses; Italy is a paradise for horses, hell for women, as the proverb goes.

Robert Burton

A proverb is the wisdom of many and the wit of one.

Lord John Russell

Curse away! And let me tell thee, Beauseant, a wise proverb The Arabs have,"Curses are like young chickens, And still come home to roost."

Edward George Earl Bulwer Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

A proverb is much matter decocted into a few words.

Thomas Fuller

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge

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

John Keats

Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much nearer the truth.

Alfred North Whitehead

Time and tide wait for no man. A pompous and self-satisfied proverb, and was true for a billion years; but in our day of electric wires and water-ballast we turn it around: Man waits not for time nor tide.

Mark Twain

Sir Walt, being strangely supprized and putt out of his countenance at so great a Table, gives his son a damned blow over the face; his son, as rude as he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over the face of the Gentleman that sate next to him, and sayed, Box about, 'twill come to my Father anon. 'Tis now a common used Proverb.

John Aubrey

It has become a settled principle that nothing which is good and true can be destroyed by persecution, but that the effect ultimately is to establish more firmly, and to spread more widely, that which it was designed to overthrow. It has long since passed into a proverb that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."

Albert Barnes

... (a flash of insight) never comes by itself, in the sense that it comes effortless. You really need to work for it. There is a good proverb that says "fortuity helps the prepared mind." Insight will come by chance, but you only get it if you are prepared. Insight doesn't come by its own.

Carlo W. J. Beenakker

I have just turned life into a proverb. I just killed it.

Giannina Braschi
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