Proverb Quotes (29 quotes)
[Alchemists] get a small livelihood by some Physical Experiments, as also by some Paints and effeminate Fucusses [cosmetics], which the Scriptures call the Oyntments of harlott; whence the Proverb, Every Alchymist is a Physician or a Sope-boyler.
In The Vanity of the Arts and Sciences (1530), translation (1676), 312-313.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Perhaps an older adage, but an example of its use appears in Pennsylvania Gazette (4 Feb 1734-5), about fire prevention, including taking care, moving live coals from a fireplace between rooms, for safety in a closed warming-pan. A midnight fire from a spilled ember might set your stairs on fire: “You may be forced, as I once was, to leap out of your windows, and hazard your necks to avoid being over-roasted.” As cited in Benjamin Franklin and J. Sparks (ed.), The Works of Benjamin Franklin (1840), Vol. 1, 134, footnote.
As the proverb says, “You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren.”
In Afoot in England (1909, 1922), 80. He might have originated this specific wording, but as this full sentence shows, Hudson was quoting a proverb. Many sources simply attribute the quote to him. Yet, in fact, the expression goes back to at least 1607, for it appears in Thomas Walkington, 'To the Reader', The Optick Glasse of Humors as “I have soared also above my pitch, attempting an Eagles flight with the wing of a Wrenne.”
Early Greek astronomers, derived their first knowledge from the Egyptians, and these from the Chaldeans, among whom the science was studied, at a very early period. Their knowledge of astronomy, which gave their learned men the name of Magi, wise men, afterwards degenerated into astrology, or the art of consulting the position of the stars to foretel events—and hence sprung the silly occupation of sooth saying, for which the Chaldeans were noted to a proverb, in later ages.
In Elements of Useful Knowledge (1806), Vol. 1, 8-9. Note “foretel” is as printed in this text.
Exercise is good for your health, but like everything else it can be overdone.
Arabic Proverb. In Shape Magazine. In Dr. Paul C. Bragg, Dr. Patricia Bragg, Super Power Breathing (1999), 62.
Filthy water cannot be washed.
African proverb. As given in William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (ed.), The Crisis: A Record Of The Darker Races (1969), Vol. 30-31, 87.
For most diagnoses all that is needed is an ounce of knowledge, an ounce of intelligence, and a pound of thoroughness.
Arabic Proverb. In Lancet (1951). In John Murtagh, General Practice (1998), 125.
He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything.
Arabic proverb.
Hence when a person is in great pain, the cause of which he cannot remove, he sets his teeth firmly together, or bites some substance between them with great vehemence, as another mode of violent exertion to produce a temporary relief. Thus we have the proverb where no help can be has in pain, 'to grin and abide;' and the tortures of hell are said to be attended with 'gnashing of teeth.'Describing a suggestion of the origin of the grin in the present form of a proverb, 'to grin and bear it.'
Zoonomia, Or, The Laws of Organic Life, in three parts (1803), Vol. 1, 330.
If you are too smart to pay the doctor, you had better be too smart to get ill.
African proverb, Transvaal
If you intend to give a sick man medicine, let him get very ill first, so that he may see the benefit of your medicine.
African proverb, Nupe
In logic, A asserts and B denies. Assertions being proverbially untrue, the presumption would be in favor of B’s innocence were it not that denials are notoriously false.
The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary (2000), 5.
In science, the more discovered, the more new paths open for exploration. It is usual in science, when things are vague and unclear, for the path to be like that of a drunkard, wandering in a zigzag. As we stagger back from what lastly dawns upon our befuddled wits is the wrong way, we cross over the true path and move nearly as far to the, equally wrong, opposite side. If all goes well, our deviations lessen and the path converges towards, but never completely follows, the true one. It gives a new insight to the old tag in vino veritas.
In The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth (1999), 199.
In the midst of your illness you will promise a goat, but when you have recovered, a chicken will seem sufficient.
African proverb, Jukun
Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise. “Necessity is the mother of invention” is a silly proverb. “Necessity is the mother of futile dodges” is much closer to the truth. The basis of growth of modern invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity.
In 'Technical Education and Its Relation to Science and Literature', The Aims of Education and Other Essays (1917), 69.
It has been said that [William Gull] “seldom delivered a lecture which was not remarkable for some phrase full of wise teaching, which from its point and conciseness became almost a proverb amongst his pupils.”
Stated in Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), xxiv.
Loss of teeth and marriage spoil a woman’s beauty.
African proverb
Love and pregnancy and riding on a camel cannot be hid.
Arabic proverb.
My boyhood life in New York City has impressed me with the popular ignorance and also with the great need of something better than local lore and weather proverbs.
In 'How the United States Weather Bureau Was Started', Scientific American (20 May 1916), 114, 529.
No man is a good physician who has never been sick.
Arabic proverb.
Poison should be tried out on a frog.
African proverb, Bantu
Background of ocean and rocky outcrop with kelp on sandy shore in foreground, at Channel Islands NMS, California. , Photo by Claire Fackler, NOAA (source)
Socrates said, our only knowledge was
“To know that nothing could be known;” a pleasant
Science enough, which levels to an ass
Each Man of Wisdom, future, past, or present.
Newton, (that Proverb of the Mind,) alas!
Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,
That he himself felt only “like a youth
Picking up shells by the great Ocean—Truth.”
“To know that nothing could be known;” a pleasant
Science enough, which levels to an ass
Each Man of Wisdom, future, past, or present.
Newton, (that Proverb of the Mind,) alas!
Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,
That he himself felt only “like a youth
Picking up shells by the great Ocean—Truth.”
From poem, 'Don Juan,' (1822), canto 7, verse V. In Lord Byron, Don Juan: Cantos VI, VII and VIII (1823), 67.
The best patient is a millionaire with a positive Wassermann [antibody test for syphilis]. In Carl Malmberg , 140 Million Patients (1947), 30. Medical proverb before the discovery of antibiotics.
The California climate makes the sick well and the well sick, the old young and the young old.
American saying
The many who believe they are the wiser for reading accounts of experiments deceive themselves. It is as impossible to learn science from hearsay as to gain wisdom from proverbs.
Said by the fictional character Lydia in Cashel Byron’s Profession (1886, 1906), 87-88.
Visitor’s footfalls are like medicine; they heal the sick.
African proverb, Bantu
We live in a glass-soaked civilization, but as for the bird in the Chinese proverb who finds it so difficult to discover air, the substance is almost invisible to us. To use a metaphor drawn from glass, it may be revealing for us to re-focus, to stop looking through glass, and let our eyes dwell on it for a moment to contemplate its wonder. [Co-author with Gerry Martin.]
Glass: A World History (2002), 4.
We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs by imitation.
In Lecture, second in a series given at Freeman Place Chapel, Boston (Mar 1859), 'Quotation and Originality', Letters and Social Aims (1875, 1917), 178-179.
When fate arrives the physician becomes a fool.
Arabic Proverb. In James Long, Eastern Proverbs and Emblems (2001), 84.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
