Proverbial Wisdom

Express the idea behind each of these proverbs using different words as much as you can.

Introduction

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. The cord breaketh at the last by the weakest pull.

Old Spanish Proverb

Quoted by Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626).
Essay XV, Of Seditions and Troubles

2. Things past recovery
Are hardly cured with exclamations.

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

The Jew of Malta (Barabbas), Act I, Scene II

3. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

Essays, State Tamperings with Money and Banks

4. One can be a soldier without dying, and a lover without sighing.

Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

Adzuma, or The Japanese Wife (Sakamune),
Act II, Scene V

5. A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

The Grandmother, VIII

6. We should marry to please ourselves, not other people.

Isaac Bickerstaff (1733-?1812)

The Maid of the Mill (Lord Ainsworth),
Act III, Scene IV

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Metaphors

Choose one of these words and use it metaphorically, not literally.

Tag Questions

Complete each of these statements with a little request for confirmation.