A brave retreat is a brave
exploit.
A carper can cavil at anything.
A carrion kite will never make a good hawk.
A child is better unborn than untaught.
A custom more honored in the breach than in the observance.
A dogmatical tone, a pragmatical pate.
A diligent scholar, and the master’s paid.
A dog’s life, hunger and ease.
A dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees farther of the two.
A fair field and no favor.
A fault confessed is half redressed.
A fine new nothing.
A fool always comes short of his reckoning.
A fool will not be foiled.
A forced kindness deserves no thanks.
A good cause makes a stout heart and a strong arm.
A good name keeps its lustre in the dark.
A grain of prudence is worth a pound of craft.
A great city, a great solitude.
A honey tongue, a heart of gall.
A man may buy gold too dear.
A man must sell his ware at the rates of the market.
A man never surfeits of too much honesty.
A nod for a wise man, and a rod for a fool.
A penny saved is a penny got.
A wicked book is the wickeder because it cannot repent.
A wager is a fool’s argument.
All complain of want of memory, but none of want of judgment.
All the craft is in the catching.
An unpeaceable man hath no neighbor.
Antiquity is not always a mark of verity.
As wily as a fox.
Better lose a jest than a friend.
Better to go away longing than loathing.
By ignorance we mistake, and by mistakes we learn.
Children are certain cares, but uncertain comforts.
Clowns are best in their own company, but gentlemen are best
everywhere.
Conscience cannot be compelled.
Cutting out well is better than sewing up well.
Danger and delight grow on one stock.
Decency and decorum are not pride.
Different sores must have different salves.
Dexterity comes by experience.
Do not spur a free horse.
Even reckoning makes long friends.
Every age confutes old errors and begets new.
Every man hath a fool in his sleeve.
Faint praise is disparagement.
Force without forecast is of little avail.
From fame to infamy is a beaten road.
Great businesses turn on a little pin.
Great spenders are bad lenders.
He is lifeless that is faultless.
Heaven will make amends for all.
Let your purse be your master.
Idleness is the greatest prodigality in the world.
Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune.
It is a wicked thing to make a dearth one’s garner.
Lean liberty is better than fat slavery.
Self-love is a mote in every man’s eye.
Sloth is the key to poverty.
Some sport is sauce to pains.
Subtility set a trap and caught itself.
Temporizing is sometimes great wisdom.
The goat must browse where he is tied.
The poet, of all sorts of artificers, is the fondest of his works.
The prick of a pin is enough to make an empire insipid.
The purest gold is the most ductile.
There’s a craft in daubing.
Thrift is good revenue.
Too much consulting confounds.
Truth needs not many words, but a false tale a large preamble.
Truths too fine-spun are subtle fooleries.
Upbraiding turns a benefit into an injury.
Use your wit as a buckler, not as a sword.
What God made, he never mars.
When honor grew mercenary, money grew honorable.
Where vice is, vengeance
follows.
