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.
How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
Othello (Iago), Act II, Scene III
2.
What though youth gave love and roses.
Age still leaves us friends and wine.
Spring and Autumn
3.
Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot.
On Roscommon’s Translation of De Arte Poetica
4.
Naught shall make us rue,
If England to herself do rest but true.
King John (Bastard), Act V, Scene VII
5. Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
On the French Revolution
6.
Nothing speaks our griefe so well
As to speak nothing.
Upon the Death of a Gentleman, line 27
❰
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
❱
