English proverbs

A task becomes easier and quicker when several people share the effort. The proverb values practical cooperation, especially where work can be divided among willing participants.

One reading takes honour as esteem for learning and for those who pursue it. On that understanding, knowledge dwindles when a society no longer values intellectual effort, study, or the people who preserve and share what is known.

The standards a person applies to others may later be applied to that person. Harshness, fairness, generosity, or severity can therefore return as corresponding treatment or judgment.

The saying personifies idleness and says that someone who avoids work should blame their own inactivity when they lack basic necessities. Going barefoot represents poverty or want, presented as a foreseeable result of refusing productive effort.

The saying rebukes divided loyalty: a person cannot honestly support one side while also helping its opponent. In the hunting image, siding with the hounds while fleeing with the hare represents trying to profit from both camps.

Going beyond one’s present position may not bring a better outcome. A longer journey, broader search, or further attempt can leave someone in less favorable circumstances than before.

A personal pastime can be a durable source of pleasure. The saying values having an absorbing interest outside routine obligations, because it gives a person something enjoyable and self-chosen to pursue.

Deceitful or unscrupulous conduct—“knavery,” an older-sounding term for such behavior—can sometimes produce an immediate advantage, especially when someone seeks a quick solution. The proverb warns that such gains are temporary and do not outweigh the enduring value of honest behavior.

The saying warns that plentiful money can damage a young person’s character or prospects when it removes limits, responsibility, and the need to develop judgment.

When a person, place, object, or concern is no longer seen or encountered, it may gradually receive less attention. Physical absence can make feelings, responsibilities, or memories seem less immediate, without necessarily erasing care or memory.

A person's speech may disclose what occupies their inner thoughts or feelings. Even when someone tries to conceal an attitude, their words can reveal underlying wishes, judgments, or concerns.

Constant traffic prevents grass from taking root on a road. The image therefore contrasts a place exposed to continual passing and disturbance with one left still long enough for growth to appear.

Do not form a final opinion of a thing while it is still being made, repaired, or otherwise incomplete. Its present rough state may reveal little about the quality, usefulness, or appearance it will have when finished.

Close and repeated contact can sometimes erode admiration or restraint, making faults more visible and encouraging people to take one another for granted.

The saying contrasts learning from other people's painful mistakes with learning only after suffering a similar mistake oneself.

The saying wryly suggests that harm, embarrassment, or unwanted interference may come from friends as readily as from open opponents. Friendship does not guarantee good judgment, discretion, loyalty, or helpful conduct.

Precautions taken only after the harm has happened cannot undo it. The saying criticizes a response that addresses a danger after the opportunity to prevent the loss has already passed.

The saying proposes that a small example of spending can reveal the pattern of a larger sum. Observing how someone uses a penny is presented as a clue to how they will use a shilling.

Small sums or modest efforts, repeated steadily, can accumulate into a significant result. The image of a purse becoming full emphasizes that progress need not begin with large resources.

Money tends to attract companionship, assistance, and flattering attention. The saying warns that apparent friendship may be drawn to a person's resources rather than to genuine personal affection or loyalty.

A person can provide access, instruction, encouragement, or opportunity, yet cannot compel another person to accept help or take the final necessary action. Willingness belongs to the individual whose choice is at issue.

It is wiser to tolerate a brief shortage of space than to maintain more house than is ordinarily needed. A passing inconvenience is preferable to the continuing expense, work, or waste associated with permanent excess.

When punishment for a smaller wrongdoing is no lighter than that for a greater one, a person may reason that restraint has lost its practical value. The saying voices a fatalistic choice to accept the larger risk once serious consequences seem unavoidable.

Severe hunger can make even normally unappealing or difficult food seem welcome and satisfying. Need changes what people are willing to eat by making mere sustenance feel valuable.

The saying grants the right to celebrate or mock to those who have actually prevailed. It directs attention away from premature boasting and toward the outcome that decides whose confidence was justified.

The speaker has more pressing or more relevant matters to deal with and does not intend to devote attention to the issue currently being raised. It commonly signals a decision to move on rather than continue a discussion, task, or dispute.

When dishonest or unscrupulous people—called “knaves” in this older wording—turn against one another, their quarrel can reveal schemes or stolen property they had concealed. Honest people, termed “true men,” may then recover what was wrongfully taken.

Close, attentive oversight by the person responsible can accomplish more than that person's own physical labor. Presence, observation, and direction help keep work on course and reveal problems.

A worthwhile aim often demands accepting the discomfort, inconvenience, or minor risk that comes with pursuing it. Someone who refuses every unpleasant part of a task may also forfeit the result they want; this concerns ordinary costs, not unreasonable danger.

Do not sort comparable people into unequal classes or grant them different treatment without a fair reason. The saying warns against drawing a divisive distinction between those who ought to be judged by the same standard.

The saying observes that everyone has some favorite interest, subject, or pursuit to which they return with unusual enthusiasm. A person's hobby-horse may be a harmless enjoyment, but it can also be a topic they repeatedly raise.

Good motives do not excuse harmful, careless, or ineffective conduct. Usually figurative rather than a religious claim, the saying warns that intending to do well is not enough when actions produce damaging consequences.

The saying treats denial as more than a response to wrongdoing. When someone refuses to acknowledge a fault, that refusal is presented as a fresh moral failure added to the original act.

A present carries more value when it is offered with warmth, goodwill, and a pleasant manner. The giver’s expression and attitude can make the recipient feel genuinely welcomed rather than merely supplied with an object.

The saying suggests that an unwise person makes sense of what they hear or observe according to their own mistaken ideas. Their judgment shapes the message they believe they receive, rather than the thing itself supplying a reliable meaning.

As long as someone remains alive, the possibility of recovery, change, rescue, or a better outcome has not disappeared. The saying urges people not to treat a difficult situation as finally lost while life continues.

A son is said to resemble his father in character, habits, abilities, or behavior. The saying compares a father and son and presents the son as following a recognizable parental pattern.

The saying uses an absurd condition—reaching an eye with an elbow—to insist that one should not touch or rub the eyes. Its force lies in making the prohibited action practically impossible, rather than merely advising caution.

Direct observation is presented as more trustworthy than repeated second-hand reports. The saying urges people to give greater weight to what a person has personally seen than to information passed along by others.

It is wiser to take a longer or less direct course than to press ahead and encounter a hazard. Here, “go about” means taking an indirect way or avoiding the risky path, not simply beginning an activity. The inconvenience of a detour is preferable to the greater loss from a preventable mistake.

A true friend praises someone when that person is absent, rather than reserving kind words for face-to-face flattery. What is said in private or among others is presented as a stronger test of goodwill.

The person with ultimate responsibility is presumed to notice more, and to judge more effectively, than several people carrying out delegated tasks. Close oversight by the owner or leader is therefore presented as especially valuable, though not as a reliable rule that one leader always knows more than a team.

Speaking kindly takes no more time or effort than speaking harshly. The saying urges a person to choose words that help, comfort, or encourage rather than words that wound.

Acts of kindness are likened to seed: when they are deliberately spread through generous conduct, they tend to produce further goodwill. The saying presents benevolence as something that grows through being given rather than hoarded.

A person who takes on too many jobs, plans, or commitments at once cannot give each one enough attention. Some efforts may be neglected, lose momentum, or remain unfinished before they can be completed.

It observes that time can lessen even profound grief. The point is not that loss disappears, but that its sharpest pain may gradually become less overwhelming.

A flame goes out when its fuel is removed; figuratively, a dispute, harmful activity, or destructive outburst may fade when the support that sustains it is cut off. The saying directs attention from visible effects to their enabling conditions.

Trouble in a vital or controlling part can diminish the well-being of everything connected to it. Read literally, pain in the head affects the whole body; figuratively, a serious difficulty at the centre is seldom contained there.

In its direct sense, physical hunger can overpower religious concentration and good intentions. Someone who is hungry may find prayer, reflection, or other acts of devotion difficult to sustain.

The saying presents marriage as a companionship in which sorrow is shared and so may feel less crushing. A close partner can offer comfort, practical help, and emotional support when hardship arrives.