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Proverbs   /prˈɑvərbz/   Listen
Proverbs

noun
1.
An Old Testament book consisting of proverbs from various Israeli sages (including Solomon).  Synonym: Book of Proverbs.






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"Proverbs" Quotes from Famous Books



... Latest News Items Latest about "Lo." Letter from a Friend Letter of Advice, A Letter from a Japanese Student Letter from a Croaker, A Leaven of Leavenworth Literary Vampire Lines by a Hapless Swain Long Shot, A "Lot" on a Lot of Proverbs Love in a Boarding-House Lucus a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various

... the group with his glasses on his forehead. "Don't you know what's a-happening to John?" he asks. "Well, I know. Whoever wrote the Bible was a pretty smart man. I've found that out in seventy-five years—especially the Proverbs, and I've been thinking some of the Testament." He smiles. "There's something in it. It says, 'Except ye come as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom.' That's it—that's it. I don't claim to know rightly what the kingdom ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... walls of his dwelling; Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil of his garden; Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible on Sunday Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in the Proverbs,— How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her always, How all the days of her life she will do him good, and not evil, How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh with gladness, How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth the distaff, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... observation and reflection, and to not attempting to trace the real nature of the phenomena in which we take part, and which occur every day. The habitual inaccuracy of observation has led to the use of many proverbs and aphorisms in the interpretation of things which have been transmitted from one generation to another, and are now accepted as indubitable axioms. These are to be found in every branch of knowledge, and we ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... use and behoof of my cousin Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe my notions on the holy estate of matrimony; a letter was too light, and a formal essay too heavy, and I didn't care to versify my thoughts, so I resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon's Proverbs or the 'Wisdom' of Jesus the Son of Sirach: and I did so,—successively, in the Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendship, and fourthly on Education: several other pieces growing afterwards. Whilst at Albury, my cousin showed some of these ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... very fine talking, sir. Proverbs are easily made in cold blood. But it can't be helped. Are you bound ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... not last long, for he was young and strong, and, I said before, by nature a very courageous boy. There came into his head, somehow or other, a proverb that his nurse had taught him—the people of Nomansland were very fond of proverbs: ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... are right, Mr. Curtis," said Andre, smil- ing, "but poets are like proverbs; you can always find one to contradict another. Although Waller and Moore have chosen to sing the praises of the Bermudas, it has been sup- posed that Shakspeare was depicting them in the terrible scenes that are found in ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... names of Damasus (366-384), Gelasius I. (492-496), and Hormisdas (514-523). According to the first, the books of the Old Testament are arranged in three orders. In the first are the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four Kings, two Chronicles, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus; in the second, all the prophets, including Baruch; in the third, Job, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Esdras, two Maccabees. The New Testament books are the four gospels, fourteen epistles ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson

... effect, I sought the apartment of Mr. Rowley of the Rueful Countenance, and found him less yellow, but still contrite, and listening to Mrs. McRankine, who sat with open book by his bedside, and plied him with pertinent dehortations from the Book of Proverbs. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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 ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... there are in Codex Regius the following: (1) Of a more or less comprehensive character, Voeluspa, Vafthrudnismal, Grimnismal, Lokasenna, Harbardsljod; (2) dealing with episodes, Hymiskvida, Thrymskvida, Skirnisfoer. Havamal is a collection of proverbs, but contains two interpolations from mythical poems; Alvissmal, which, in the form of a dialogue between Thor and a dwarf Alviss, gives a list of synonyms, is a kind of mythologico-poetical glossary. Several of these poems are found in another ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday

... one of the best of proverbs, 'qui fait le soldat.' 'It is the soup that makes the soldier.' Excellent as our troops are in the field, there cannot be a more unquestionable fact, than their immense inferiority to the French in the business of cookery. The English soldier lays his piece of ration ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... the treasure-house of my heart. I keep it there as a secret debt that I am glad to think I can never possibly repay. It is embalmed and kept sweet by the myrrh and cassia of many tears. When wisdom has been profitless to me, philosophy barren, and the proverbs and phrases of those who have sought to give me consolation as dust and ashes in my mouth, the memory of that little, lovely, silent act of love has unsealed for me all the wells of pity: made the desert blossom like a rose, and brought me out of the bitterness of lonely exile into harmony ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... may be traced to the Bible in sentiment. Proverbs, ix:17 has it: "Stolen waters are sweet." "What are you giving me," supposed to be a thorough Americanism, is based upon Genesis, xxxviii:16. The common slang, "a bad man," in referring to Western desperadoes, in almost ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... English ranks at the battle of Hastings. After him came Philippe de Thaun, who tried to set to song the science of his day; Thorold, the author of a romance entitled 'Roland;' Samson de Nauteuil, the translator of Solomon's Proverbs into French verse; Geoffrey Gaimar, who wrote a Chronicle of the Saxon kings; and one David, a minstrel of no little note and power in his day. But a more remarkable writer succeeded, and his work, like Aaron's rod, swallowed up all the productions of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... presently takes its place in the world's list of recognized and established wisdoms, and after that no one thinks of examining it to see whether it is really entitled to its high honors or not. I call to mind instances of this in two well-established proverbs, whose dullness is not surpassed by the one about the Englishman and his love for a lord: one of them records the American's Adoration of the Almighty Dollar, the other the American millionaire-girl's ambition to trade cash for a title, with a ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... characters surrounded by no atmosphere at all. He is probably the last great writer who will fling about classic anecdotes as if they were club gossip. In the discussion of morals, this assumption does little harm. The stories and proverbs which illustrate the thought of the moralist generally concern only those simple relations of life which are common to all ages. There is charm in this familiar dealing with antiquity. The classics are thus domesticated and made real to us. What matter ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... ready made science at a lecture—let's hear the last new professor, the man who has been behind the scenes at Creation, and knows to a T how the world was made, and how long it took to make it. There's the other fellow, too: mind we don't forget the modern Solomon, who has left his proverbs behind him—the brand-new philosopher who considers the consolations of religion in the light of harmless playthings, and who is kind enough to say that he might have been all the happier if he could only have been childish enough to play with them ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... I go into Philosophy and Science and such things the more clearly I see what a fund of truth there is in the old simple proverbs! ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis

... 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 ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... went on regularly, each one trying to get along as smoothly as possible; but the comfort of the voyage was evidently at an end. "That is a long lane which has no turning"—-"Every dog must have his day, and mine will come by-and-by"—and the like proverbs, were occasionally quoted; but no one spoke of any probable end to the voyage, or of Boston, or anything of the kind; or if he did, it was only to draw out the perpetual, surly reply from his shipmate—"Boston, is it? You may thank your stars if you ever see that place. You had better ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... Marseilles contended with Aix for the great plebeian; his two elections, the discourses he then delivered, the addresses he drew up, the energy he employed, commanded the attention of all France. His sonorous phrases became the proverbs of the Revolution; comparing himself, in his lofty language, to the men of antiquity, he placed himself already in the public estimation in the elevated position he aspired to reach. Men became accustomed to identify him ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... came a call across the garden fence from the house, in a weak but commanding voice, and Rose Mary caught a glimpse of Miss Lavinia's white mob cap bobbing at the end of the porch, "that is in Proverbs tenth and nineteenth, and not nineteenth and tenth, like you said. You come right in here and get it straight in your head before the next sun sets ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... grave and oh! base is their abode: Then came to them a Crier after burial and cried, * What booted thrones or crowns or the gold to you bestowed: Where now are gone the faces hid by curtain and by veil, * Whose charms were told in proverbs, those beauties a-la-mode? The tombs aloud reply to the questioners and cry, * 'Death's canker and decay those rosy cheeks corrode' Long time they ate and drank, but their joyaunce had a term, * And the eater eke was eaten, and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... ancient Rabbis had but little respect. Rabbi Joshua, son of Levi, says, "He who writes it down will have no part in the world to come; he who explains it will be scorched." Maimonides also says, "If one of the many foolish rabbis reads these histories and proverbs, he will find an explanation unnecessary, for to a fool everything is right, and he finds no difficulty anywhere. And if a really wise man reads them, there will be but two ways in which he will consider them. If he takes them in their literal sense and thinks them ...
— Hebrew Literature

... is time—the most beautiful is light—the largest is the world—the wisest is truth—the most common is death—the most useful is God—the most hurtful is the devil—the strongest is fortune—and the most easy, to follow one's own inclination." In the book of Proverbs, we find several series of this description, which originally might have been answers to questions of a similar nature. Among others, we have this very curious and beautiful statement: "There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise; ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... love rarely was crowned with success except by perseverance. Such a simple little tale of boy's passion as that told him by his cousin had no attraction for him. A wife would hardly be worth having, and worth keeping, so won. And all proverbs were on his side. "None but the brave deserve the fair," said his cousin. "I shall stick to it," said Tom Spooner. "Labor omnia vincit," said his cousin. But what should be his next step? Gerard Maule had been sent away with a flea in his ear,—so, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... life, on the left, is imagined in accordance with the picture of the virtuous woman in the last chapter of Proverbs. She is seen washing wool in a bowl, carding it, stripping the flax, beating it, spinning it on a distaff, and winding it ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... Proverbs, chapter 31, verse 10: "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... Mr. Woodnot; and he commended it into the trusty hands of Mr. sermon Barnabas Oley,[23] who published it with a most conscientious and excellent preface; from which I have had some of those truths, that are related in this life of Mr. Herbert. The text of his first Sermon was taken out of Solomon's Proverbs, chap. iv. 23, and the words were, "Keep thy heart with all diligence." In which first Sermon he gave his Parishioners many necessary, holy, safe rules for the discharge of a good conscience, both to God and man; and delivered his Sermon after ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... 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 ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... kitchen, confident of a perfect appreciation. She was a plump, fair, blue-eyed girl, giggly and easily flattered, with teeth like cream. She was passionately domestic, and her mind was full of homely stories and proverbs and superstitions which she somehow worked into her cookery. She and Bouchalka had between them a whole literature of traditions about sauces and fish and pastry. The cellar was full of the wines he liked, and Ruzenka always knew what wines to serve with the dinner. Blasius' ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... Alexander the Great, addressed him thus: "Think not that the Scythians confirm their friendship by an oath. They swear by keeping their word." The Phrygians were wholly against oaths. They neither took them themselves, nor required them of others. Among the proverbs of the Arabs, this was a celebrated one, "Never swear, but let thy word be yes or no." So religious was Hercules, says Plutarch, that he never swore but once. Clinias, a Greek philosopher, and a scholar of Pythagoras, is said to have dreaded an oath so much, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... 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, and distinguished ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... beholders; and his discourse was well seasoned, and suited unto every age, sex, rank, and condition. In four languages, the British, the Hibernian, the Gallic, and the Latin, was he thoroughly skilled; and the Greek language also did he partly understand. The little Book of Proverbs, which he composed in the Hibernian tongue, and which is full of edification, still existeth; and his great volume, called Canoin Phadruig, that is, the canons of Patrick, suiteth every person, be he secular, be he ecclesiastic, unto the exercise ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... the ethical ideas of the other writings of the Old Testament, the books of Wisdom, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. Their teaching, while not particularly lofty, is generally healthy and practical, consisting of homely commonplaces and shrewd observations upon life and conduct. The motives appealed to ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... his attention as soon as he set up his press in England. He also printed in the same type a Sarum Ordinale, known only by a fragment in the Bodleian, and a number of small quarto tracts, such as The Moral Proverbs of Christyne, which bears date the 20th of February; a Latin school-book called Stans Puer ad Mensam; two translations from the Distichs of Dionysius Cato, entitled respectively Parvus Catho and Magnus Catho, of which a second edition was speedily called for; Lydgate's ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer

... do not speak a word over your breakfast. If I speak, you either do not answer, or you find fault with what I say; and if I show the least enthusiasm for anything but your work, you preach me down with proverbs and maxims, as though I were a child. I am foolish, young, impatient, silly, not fit to take care of myself, you say! Have you taken care of me? Have you ever sacrificed one hour out of your long day to give me a little pleasure? Have you ever once, since we were married, stayed at home one morning ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... 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 ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... word to the Bible. The Old Testament, though having in it many harsh and hard features, belonging to the Jewish mind, has strains which rise into a higher region than anything in the Vedas or the Zendavesta. The Proverbs of Solomon are about on a level with the books of Confucius. But nowhere in all these Ethnic Scriptures are strains like some of the Psalms—like passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah. The laws of Menu are low ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... Dan'l Borem, chuckling, "that he said I was a old skinflint, good only at a hoss trade, uneddicated, ignorant, and unable to keep accounts, and an oppressor o' the widder and orphan. Allowed that my cute sayin's was a kind o' ten-cent parody o' them proverbs in Poor ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... 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 ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... entangled in the matter 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. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... huge scholarship, he loves to depend for his richest, most human effects, upon his own peasant-people of Touraine! The proverbs of the country-side, the wisdom of tavern-wit, the shrewdness and fantasy of old wives tales, the sly earthly humors of farmers and vine-tenders and goat-herds and goose-girls—these are things out of which he distils his vision, his oracles, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... two players go out. The others sit in line and choose a proverb having as many words as there are players. Thus, if there were eight players, "They love too much who die for love" would do; or if more than eight, two short proverbs might be chosen. Each player having made certain what his word is, the others are called in. It is their duty to find out what proverb has been fixed upon, and the means of doing so is to ask each player in turn a question on ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... natural. Connected with the spirit of jealousy is that of revenge. Had we known Japan only during her feudal days, we should have pronounced the Japanese exceedingly revengeful. Revenge was not only the custom, it was also the law of the land and the teaching of moralists. One of the proverbs handed down from the hoary past is: "Kumpu no ada to tomo ni ten we itadakazu." "With the enemy of country, or father, one cannot live under the same heaven." The tales of heroic Japan abound in stories of revenge. Once when Confucius was asked about the doctrine of Lao-Tse that one should return ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O Sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man' Proverbs, ch. vi. ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... to have some better pudding to eat than this hard duff," answered Paddy, who seldom understood the meaning of the proverbs Higson was in the habit of quoting. The old mate only laughed; though he had a colt, to keep the turbulent in order, he seldom used it, treating the two youngsters with more consideration than he might have done under other circumstances, out of respect ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... 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 or ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... I must 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 it is ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... 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

... according to theories of international law, I fear the practical result will be that she has secured the permanent enmity of one powerful people, and the discontented distrust of another. It is ill trusting even proverbs implicitly; that old one, about the safe middle course, will break down, like the rest, sometimes. My pertinacious querist stopped, I suppose, when he had got to the end of his list, and apparently spent the rest of the evening in a slow process of digestion; for he would break out, now and ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... was very narrow, too low in the roof to admit of his standing, 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

... 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 tried ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... farming, the preservation of the chemical content of manure and the composting of the rubbish of a farm, but they brought to their farming operations some thing more which we have not altogether learned—the character which made them a people of enduring achievement. Varro quotes one of their proverbs "Romanus sedendo vincit," which illustrates my present point. The Romans achieved their results by thoroughness and patience. It was thus that they defeated Hannibal and it was thus that they built their farm houses and fences, cultivated their fields, their vineyards and their oliveyards, ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... when 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 ...
— Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

... with learned and clever men, do not introduce trifles, and do not bring forward too advanced conversation before ignorant people which they cannot understand nor easily believe. Do not always begin with proverbs, especially among your equals, and still less with your superiors. Do not speak of things out of place, or of such as may shock your hearers. At banquets and on days of rejoicing do not bring up sorrowful news or accounts of sad calamities, no filth, ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway

... qualities which Sir Walter has immortalized in fiction. He has arranged his "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character" under five heads, relating respectively to the religious feelings and observances, the conviviality, the domestic service, the language and proverbs, and the peculiarities of the wit and humor of Scotland. In New England, and wherever in any part of the country the New-Englander resides, the volume will receive a most cordial recognition. Dean Ramsay's qualifications for his work are plainly implied in his evident understanding ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... story of the 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 and ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... 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 avenue leading ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... and must prevail, there will always be plenty of people, and good people, who cannot, or think they cannot, see anything in that last, wisest, most envelop'd of proverbs, "Friendship rules the World." Modern society, in its largest vein, is essentially intellectual, infidelistic—secretly admires, and depends most on, pure compulsion or science, its rule and sovereignty—is, in short, in ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... can very often carry two facts fastened together more easily than one by itself, as a housemaid can carry two pails of water with a hoop more easily than one without it. You can remember a man's face, made up of many features, better than you can his nose or his mouth or his eye-brow. Scores of proverbs show you that you can remember two lines that rhyme better than one without the jingle. The ancients, who knew the laws of memory, grouped the seven cities that contended for the honor of being Homer's birthplace in a line thus given ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... laughed at him, and answered with quaint old proverbs concerning the cares that come with gold, till Scrub, at length getting angry, vowed his brother was not fit to live with a respectable man; and taking his lasts, his awls, and his golden leaf, he left the wattle hut, and ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... how often his disciples were at a loss to understand his meaning, And he himself declares this, for, at the end of the sixteenth chapter, he says expressly, "These things I have spoken unto you in proverbs;"—that is, language not to be taken according to the letter;—"the time is coming when I will no more speak unto you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the Father." And then, when he goes on to declare, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... (relegit) the things that concern Divine worship." Thus religion seems to be so called from reading again (religendo) things concerning Divine worship; for such things are to be repeatedly revolved in the mind, according to those words of Proverbs iii. 6: In all thy ways think on Him. At the same time religion might be said to be so called because "we ought to choose again (re-eligere) those things which through our negligence we have lost," as S. Augustine has noted.[35] Or perhaps it is better derived from "binding again" (religando); ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... this was not so. Biblical, historical, and mythological lore abounds with evidences that the apple was the aristocrat of fruits. We still say 'the apple of the eye' when we wish to describe something superlatively precious. We find in Proverbs the comparison to 'apples of silver.' No other product of tree or vine has been so utilised in figurative speech. Who has not heard of and longed for the 'apples of the Hesperides'? I need not call your attention to the most tremendous and significant instance of the apple's ancient prestige ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... documents, making various changes in them, adding throughout sentences or words that seemed desirable, and suppressing what was unsuited to his taste. Several psalm-writers enriched the national literature after David. Learned men at the court of Hezekiah recast and enlarged (Proverbs xxv.-xxix.) the national proverbs, which bore Solomon's name because the nucleus of an older collection belonged to that monarch. These literary courtiers were not prophets, but rather scribes. The book of Job was written, with the exception of Elihu's later ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson

... speaking the language was something of a trial, still she seemed to consider every word I uttered as a maxim of the highest wisdom. The tritest of truths, the commonest of platitudes, the most familiar of proverbs or old saws current among us were eagerly seized by Layelah, and accepted as truths almost divine—as new doctrines for the guidance of the human race. These she would discuss with me; she would put them into better and more striking ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... a protracted search or by accident in finding the animal he cannot disprove the herdsman's statement, and the only remedy is to dispense with the latter's services if such losses become unduly frequent. On this account, according to the proverbs, the Ahir is held to be treacherous and false to his engagements. They are also regarded as stupid because they seldom get any education, retain their rustic and half-aboriginal dialect, and on account of their solitary life are dull and slow-witted in company. 'The barber's son learns to shave ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... Jews: he would naturally, then, attach to the word logos the sense attached to it by the Jews of Palestine. If, in fact, we compare the attributes which he assigns to the logos with those which are assigned to it in Proverbs, in the Wisdom of Solomon, in Ecclesiasticus, we shall see that they are the same. The Word was in the world, and the world was made by him; in him was life, and the life was the light of men, (c. i. v. 10-14.) It is impossible not to trace in this chapter the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... husband should do everything in her power to make the game enjoyable for the latter. She should encourage him, when possible, with little cheering proverbs, such as, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," and she should aid him with her advice when she thinks he is in need of it. Thus, when he drives into the sycamore tree on number eleven, she should say, "Don't you think, dear, that if you aimed a little bit more to the right...." ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart

... beauty, her gentle manners, and her ingenuousness; but he became only so much the more desirous to confuse her senses and entrap her. She placed her enthusiastic eye to the window of the box. The Devil preluded with a few proverbs and wise saws, and unfolded to her view scenes of love, in which he led her fancy so adroitly from the spiritual to the carnal, that she was scarcely aware of the gradation. If she were about to turn away her eyes with shame, the offensive object changed itself at once into a sublime ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in My Name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... Homer with the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments? Where in the Iliad shall we find simplicity and pathos which shall vie with the narrative of Moses, or maxims of conduct to equal in wisdom the Proverbs of Solomon, or sublimity which does not fade away before the conceptions of Job, or David, or Isaiah, or St. John? But I cannot pursue this comparison. I feel that it is doing wrong to the mind which dictated the Iliad, and to those ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... undertaker down to the last point, giving a note for the reduced amount which they never pay! I have officiated at obsequies of aged people where the family have been so inordinately resigned to the Providence that I felt like taking my text from Proverbs: "The eye that mocketh at its father, and refuseth to obey its mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." In other words, such an ingrate ought to have a flock of crows for pall-bearers! I congratulate ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... days of King Hezekiah there was in Israel a rich man who was a miser and gave nothing to the poor. But one day it happened that he took up the book of the proverbs of King Solomon; and his eye fell upon the place where it is said, "He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord; and look what he layeth out, it shall be paid him again." "So," thought he to himself, ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James

... chapter of Proverbs, which had been selected as appropriate to the occasion, was first read; after which the following verses selected from different Psalms were repeated in the way of alternation, the responsive part being sustained by the other ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... The proverbs says that Rome was not built in a day. It was no easy task for the twins to agree just where they should even begin the city. Romulus thought that the Palatine Hill, on which he and his brother had lived, was the most favorable spot for the ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... any you've ever heard," said the Baroness. "It happened quite a while ago, when I was about twenty-three. I wasn't living apart from my husband then; you see, neither of us could afford to make the other a separate allowance. In spite of everything that proverbs may say, poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up. But we always hunted with different packs. All this has nothing ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... was to be seen but bones and carcasses withering in the sun; that none who visit them ever again enjoy the embraces and congratulations of their wives and children; and that all who dote upon their charms are doomed to perish. What Solomon says in the ninth chapter of Proverbs, of the miseries to which those are exposed who abandon themselves to sensual pleasures, well justifies the idea given us of the Sirens by the Greek poets, and by ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... and this plan will be found most easy for reference, but 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 ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... echoed Lazy. "Where shall I find her'?" "You will find a description of her," replied Charity, "in Proverbs, sixth chapter, sixth, seventh, and eighth verses, which read as follows: 'Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise; which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provided her meat in summer, and gathereth her food in ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... penetrated deep into its spirit, and is plainly discernible in that affectation of stateliness and Oriental hyberbole, which characterizes Spanish writers even at the present day; in the subtilties and conceits with which the ancient Castilian verse is so liberally bespangled; and in the relish for proverbs and prudential maxims, which is so general that it may be considered ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... not 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 that this is true. Let every honest physician ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn

... Voice of God 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 voice from every quarter so that no one may ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer

... "Proverbs" is a game that will always remain popular. One of the players is sent out of the room, and during his absence the others decide upon a well-known proverb which he must, by asking questions, guess on his return. The ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... grave scandal on our little island. But it told upon my mother; it was the one drop of water falling day by day. "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike," says the book of Proverbs. My father's small infidelities were much the same to my mother. She was thrown altogether upon me for sympathy, and support, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... of the ages. Life has taught me that the wisdom of the ages is the truth. The Proverbs and the Ten Commandments answer all our problems. My mother taught them to me when I was a child in Wales. I have gone out and tasted life, and found her words true. Starting at forge and furnace in the roaring mills, facing facts instead of books, ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... Once more from I. John i, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." [1 John 1:9] The true definition of the righteous man is found in Proverbs xviii, "The righteous man is his own first accuser," [2] [Prov.18:17] that is to say, he is righteous because he accuses himself. The verse goes on to say, "His neighbor (i. e., Christ) cometh and searcheth him," that is, He seeketh him, and suffereth him not to perish; He will even find him and ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... so doth it fare, Money makes masteries, old proverbs declare. But, Money, of Fortune, our ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... stalls. There stands 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, ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... times over with those enigmatical proverbs of yours," said the Parson testily, "you would not ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... of the Chinese over the Corean literary mind is also shown in the fact that most of the principles and proverbs of Cho-sen have been borrowed from their pig-tailed friends across the Yalu River. The same may be said of numberless words in the Corean language which are merely corruptions or mispronounced Chinese words. The study of Chinese involves a great deal of ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... mix up the proverbs in your copy-book. But let us get back to our starting-point; what exactly is it you meditate doing this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various

... mentir qui vient de loin,"—these proverbs date from the seventeenth century. It was not expected of such adventurous gentlemen that they should tell the simple truth, any more than we expect veracity from sportsmen. We listen without surprise and disbelieve without ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... Eliza Lee Follen Baby at Play Unknown The Difference Laura E. Richards Foot Soldiers John Banister Tabb Tom Thumb's Alphabet Unknown Grammar in Rhyme Unknown Days of the Month Unknown The Garden Year Sara Coleridge Riddles Unknown Proverbs Unknown Kind Hearts Unknown Weather Wisdom Unknown ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... disposition, and who was thought not to entertain much stricter notions concerning the difference of meum and tuum than the young gentleman himself. And hence this friendship gave occasion to many sarcastical remarks among the domestics, most of which were either proverbs before, or at least are become so now; and, indeed, the wit of them all may be comprised in that short Latin proverb, "Noscitur a socio;" which, I think, is thus expressed in English, "You may know him ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... proverb I quoted, say rather," returned Adam. "Proverbs often bear a double meaning, and can be interpreted as well one way as the other. The ancients were cunning fellows in this respect, and were determined to make themselves ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... With these two sage proverbs—which all acknowledge and scarcely any really believe, or surely they would act a little more as if they did—I leave Johanna Leaf sitting silently in her solitary parlor, knitting stockings for her child; weaving many a mingled ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)



Words linked to "Proverbs" :   Book of Proverbs, sapiential book, Ketubim, wisdom literature, Writings, Hagiographa, book, Old Testament, wisdom book



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