Proverbial Wisdom
Express the idea behind each of these proverbs using different words as much as you can.
Express the idea behind each of these proverbs using different words as much as you can.
On this page you will a find a selection of brief sayings, including short quotations from English literature as well as traditional proverbs. Choose a saying, and try to express the idea in different words as much as you can. In what circumstances might you use this quotation?
Note: Many of these proverbs and quotations are in archaic English, and neither grammar nor spelling has been modernised.
1. Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
The Tempest (Trinculo), Act II, Scene II
2.
Freedom, which in no other land will thrive,
Freedom, an English subject’s sole prerogative,
Without whose charms even peace would be
But a dull, quiet slavery.
Threnodia Augustalis (on the death of King Charles II in 1685)
3.
To follow foolish precedents and wink
With both our eyes, is easier than to think.
Tirocinium
4.
He that wold not when he might,
He shall not when he wold-a.
The Baffled Knight, or Blow Away the Morning Dew
5.
Dissensions like small streams are first begun;
Scarce seen they rise, but gather as they run.
The Dispensary, Can. III, line 184
6.
Good, the more
Communicated, more abundant grows.
Paradise Lost, Bk I, line 371