W.C. Hazlitt, comp. English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases. 1907.
Pigs fly to Reason teaches
Pigs fly in the air with their tails forward.
Pigs love that lie together.
A familiar conversation breeds friendship among them who are of the most base and sordid natures.—R.
Pigs’ marrow will make you mad: pigs’ milk will give you the scurvy. Midl. Counties.
Notes and Queries, 2nd S., v. 391, 465, 522.
Pigs play on the organs.
A man [perhaps the organist] so called at Hog’s Norton in Leicestershire, or Hock’s Norton.—R. See Hazlitt’s Collections under Pigge and Pygge. The following facetious explanation of this saying occurs in Witts Recreations, 1640, sign. C 6 verso:
Pin not your faith on another’s sleeve.
Piping hot.
This expression is taken from the custom of a baker’s blowing his pipe, or horn, in villages, to let the people know his bread is just drawn, and consequently “hot” and light.—Lemon’s Dictionary, 1783, quoted by Brady (Var. of Lit., 1826).
Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage.
Piss not against the wind.
Pity cureth envy.
Placebo.
This word is used by Harington in his Apologie of Poetrie, 1591, to signify something done to propitiate.
Plain dealing is a jewel.
Plain dealing is dead, and died without issue.
Plain dealing is more praised than practised.
Plain of poverty and die a beggar.
Plant pears for your heirs.
A proverb which no longer holds true, since pears are now made to yield well after a few years; but formerly the tree was, it appears, of particularly slow growth, though, according to the French Gardener, 8vo, 1658, “the varieties at that time in cultivation were extremely numerous.
Plant the crab tree where you will, it will never bear pippins.
Play off your dust.
Play, women, and wine undo men laughing.
Pleasant hours fly fast.
Please God and Lord Mount-Edgcumbe.
This saying, which must be admitted to be rather a silly one, is current in the neighbourhood of Mount-Edgecumbe, near Devonport, where the Earl is the principal resident, and of course a personage of weight.
Please the pigs.
It has been said that this is a corruption of Please the pix, the sacred vessel so called; but I scarcely think it likely.
Pleasing ware is half sold.
Chose qui plait est à demi vendue. Fr. Mercantia che piace è mezza venduta. Ital.—R.
Pleasure that comes too thick grows fulsome.
Pleasures, while they flatter, sting.
Plenty brings pride, pride plee, plee pain, pain peace, peace plenty.
Gascoigne’s Posies, 1575; MS. of the 15th cent. in Rel. Ant., i. 315 (a different version).
Plenty is no dainty.
Plenty of ladybirds, plenty of hops.
The coccinella feeds upon the aphis, that proves so destructive to the hop-plant.—Cuthbert Bede.
Pluck not a courtesy in the bud.
Poets are born; but orators are made.
Point not at others’ spots with a foul finger.
Policy goes beyond strength.
Pompey is on your back.
A relic of nursery mythology. The black dog Pompey is said to be on a child’s back when he is fractious. This is a common saying in some parts of the country, and my wife, a native of Denbighshire, when little, entertained a stout belief in the existence of this mythic Pompey, and always fancied he was on her back, though not palpable. In South Devonshire, they say in a similar sense, “Your tail’s on your shoulder.”
Pons Asinorum. Assfordy Bridge.
The fifth problem of the first book of Euclid is so called, from the difficulty which slow scholars have to pass over it.
Poor and proud? Fy, fy.
Poor folk fare best.
Poor folks are glad of pottage.
Poor folks must say Thank ye for a little.
Poor men have no souls.
Poor men seek meat for their stomach; rich men stomach for their meat.
Poor men’s tables are soon spread.
Possession is eleven points in the law, and they say there are but twelve.
Possession is nine points of the law.
This is a sort of proverbial aphorism based on the Law of the Twelve Tables in litibus vindiciarum or actions for claims.
Pot and kettle.
La padella dice al paiuolo, fatte in là, che tu non mi tinga. Ital. Il laveggio si fa beffe della pignatta. Ital. We also say, The chimney-sweeper bids the collier wash his face.—R.
Pot luck.
An expression referrable perhaps to the primitive habit of dining from a common pot au feu. The Venetians ask you to come and partake of four grains of rice.
Poulterers’ measure.
“And the c
monest sort of verse which we vse now adayes (viz., the long verse of twelue and fourtene sillables), I know not certainly howe to name it, vnlesse I should say that it doth consist of Poulters measure, which giueth xij. for one doz
and xiiij. for another.—Gascoigne’s Certayne Notes of Instruction (1572), Works, by Hazlitt, i. 507.
Pour gold on him, and he’ll never thrive.
Poverty breeds strife. Somerset.
Poverty is not a shame, but the being ashamed of it is.
Poverty is the mother of all arts.
Poverty is the mother of health.
Poverty on an old man’s back is a heavy burthen.
Poverty parteth fellowship.
Power weakeneth the wicked.
Powis is the Paradise of Wales.
Practice makes perfect.
Practise what you preach.
Praise a fair day at night.
Praise at parting, and behold well the end.
Gesta Romanorum, ed. 1838, p. 34. Stephen Gosson wrote a Moral, now lost, called Praise at Parting.
Praise at the parting.
Tail of Rauf Coilyear, 1572 (Hazlitt’s Pop. Poetry of Scotland, i. 218).
Praise day at night, and life at the end.
Or else you may repent; for many times clear mornings turn to cloudy evenings. Della vita il fine e ’l di loda la sera. Ital.—R. “Praise not the sun, till the day is out: praise counsel, when you have followed it, and ale when you have drunk it.”—Swedish.
Praise not the day before night.
Praise the hill, but keep below.
Praise the Lord, and keep your powder dry.
Praise the sea, but keep on land.
Loda il mare, e tienti à terra. Ital.—R.
Praise without profit puts little in the pot.
Prate is but prate; ’tis money buys land.
Prate is prate; but it’s the duck that lays the egg.
Pray for yourself; I am not sick.
Precepts may lead; but examples draw.
Presbyter is priest writ large, and priest is presbyter writ small.
Press a stick, and it seems a youth.
Presumption first blinds a man, and then sets him a running.
Prettiness dies first.
Prettiness makes no pottage.
Prevention is better than cure.
Pride and grace / dwell never in one place.
Pride and poverty are ill met, yet often together.
Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy.
Poor Richard Improved, 1758. Compare Note to He that in East Cheap, &c.
Pride feels no cold [or pain].
Pride goeth before, and shame cometh after.
Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, 1590, Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi.
Pride had rather go out of the way than go behind.
Pride is as loud a beggar as want, and a great deal more saucy.
Pride is the sworn enemy to content.
Pride, joined with many virtues, chokes them all.
Pride may lurk under a threadbare cloak.
Pride often borrows the cloak of humility.
Pride scorns a director, and choler a counsellor.
Pride scorns the vulgar, yet lies at its mercy.
Pride will have a fall.
There is an epigram on this proverb in Witts Recreations (ed. 1817, ii. 116). It is not worth quoting.
Princes’ intimates are like casting-counters.
It is an old adage that princes privados and favourites of kings are like casting counters, which are used in the Exchequer as in play to count by. That sometimes they stand for one, sometimes for ten, sometimes for a hundred.—Fragmenta Aulica, 1662, p. 108.
Priests love pretty wenches.
One of the posies in the Lottery of 1567 (Kempe’s Loseley MSS., 212).
Procrastination is the thief of time.
The Spaniards say: By the road of By and bye one arrives at the town of Never.
Proffered service stinketh.
Merx ultronea putet.—Hieronym. Erasmus saith, Quin vulgo etiam in ore est, ultro delatum obsequium plerumque ingratum esse. So that it seems this proverb is in use among the Dutch too.
Profit forgetteth former pains.
Gainsford’s Rich Cabinet furnished with Variety of Descriptions, &c., 1616, fol. 121, whence come the four following.
Profit in a base trade may befoul the fist.
Profit is a kind of witchcraft.
Profit maketh a churl thankful.
Profit maketh light balances and false measures.
Promise is debt.
Summoning of Every Man (circa 1530), in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 137; Gascoigne’s Certayne Notes of Instruction (1572) ad princip.; Paradyce of Dainty Devyses, 1578, repr. 23; Harvey’s Foure Letters, &c., 1592, repr. 18.
Promises are like pie-crust, made to be broken.
Promising is the vigil of giving.
Prospect is often better than possession.
Prosperity gets followers, but adversity distinguishes them.
Prosperity lets go the bridle.
Prosperous men seldom mend their faults.
Proud as a peacock; all strut and show.
Proud Ashton, poor people, / ten bells, and an old crackt steeple.
Higson’s MSS. Col. Suppl. In the local vernacular the verses run:
Proud looks lose hearts, but courteous words win them.
Proud tailor.
The Warwickshire name for a goldfinch. See Nares, Gl. in v.
Prove thy friend, ere thou have need.
Provender pricks him.
Provide for the worst; the best will save itself.
Providence is better than rent.
Prudent pauses forward business.
Public reproof hardens shame.
Pudding is no meat with you.
Puddings an’ paramours should be hastily handled.
Puddings an’ wort are hasty dirt.
Puff not against the wind.
Puling like a beggar at Hallowmass.
In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare makes Speed use this expression. Compare The Hye Way to the Spyttel Hous (1532) in Rem. of the E. P. Poetr. of Engl., iv. 27. Also my Faiths and Folklore, 1905, p. 299.
Pull devil, pull baker.
See Notes and Queries, 2nd S., iii. 258.
Pull down your hat on the wind side.
Pull hair and hair, / and you’ll make the carle bald.
Pull off the skin in the streets, and receive thy wages.
Punctuality is the soul of business.
Punishment is lame; but it comes.
Put a coward to his mettle, and he’ll fight the devil.
Put a miller, a weaver, and a tailor in a bag, and shake them: the first that comes out will be a thief.
Put a spoke in his wheel.
Put another man’s child into your bosom, and he’ll creep out at your elbow.
This is, cherish or love him, he’ll never be naturally affected towards you.—R.
Put in with the dough, and come out with the cakes. South Devon.
Equivalent apparently to the more general saying, What is bred in the bone will out in the flesh.
Put no faith in tale-bearers.
Put not a naked sword in a mad man’s hand.
Put not an embroidered crupper on an ass.
Put not thy hand between the bark and the tree.
i.e., Meddle not in family affairs.—R.
Put not your foot in it.
Put off your armour, and then shew your courage.
Put on your spurs, and be at your speed.
Put up your pipes, and go to Lockington wake.
Put your finger in the fire, and say ’twas your ill fortune.
Put your hand no farther than your sleeve will reach.
Pyecorner law.
A rule by which an article became one’s property by placing a mark of some kind on it. See Witts Recreations, edit. 1817, ii. 127, where occurs an epigram on the subject, more apposite than quotable.
I presume an allusion to the same phrase in another sally (W. R., 1817, ii. 143):
Pylades and Orestes died long ago, and left no successors.
Quarrelling dogs come halting home.
Queen Anne is dead.
i.e., You tell me stale news. The older and perhaps original form was: “Queen Elizabeth is dead,” as Swift has it in his Polite Conversations (N. and Q., 4th S., vi. 329). But compare My Lord Baldwin, &c.
Quey-caufs [? sucking calves] are dear veal.
Qui facit per alium, facit per se.
Quick and nimble; more like a bear than a squirrel.
Quick and nimble; it will be your own another day.
Quick at meat, quick at work.
Bonne bete s’eschauffe en mangeant. Fr. A good beast will get himself an heat with eating. Hardi gagneur, hardi mangeur. Fr.—R.
Quick believers need broad shoulders.
Quick child is soon taught, quoth Hendyng.
P. of H. (Reliq. Antiq., i. 110).
Quick, for ye’ll ne’er be cleanly.
Quick landlords make careful tenants.
Quickly come, quickly go.
Fayre gainings doe make faire spendings.—B. of M. R., No. 99.
Quid nunc?
Quiet sleep feels no foul weather.
Quiet sow, quiet mow.
Notes and Queries, 1st S., ii. 512. Compare Still swine, &c.
Quite young and all alive, / like an old maid of forty-five.
Quod suprá nos, nihil ad nos.
Polydore Vergil (Proverbiorum Libellus, 1498, ed. 1503, sign, a iiiii).
Quot homines, tot sententiæ.
Comp. So many heads, &c., So many men, &c., Tot homines, &c.
Quoth the young cock, I’ll neither meddle nor make.
When he saw the old cock’s neck wrung off for taking part with the master, and the old hen’s for taking part with the dame.—R.
Rain before seven: / fine before eleven.
Rain from the east: / wet two days at least.
Raining cats and dogs.
Rains in the east, three days at least.
Raise no more spirits than you can conjure upon.
Ram Alley meditations.
Ruffianly language or thoughts. Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ix. 117.
Rare commodities are worth more than good.
Rashness is not valour.
Rasp the scythe: drink some cyder. S. Devon.
i.e., Put aside your scythe and take a draught of cyder, the common beverage of the field-labourers in the South of England.
Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.
Rather sell than be poor.
Rats walk at their ease / if cats them do not meese.
Raw leather will stretch.
Raw pulleyn, veal, and fish make the churchyards fat.
Wodroephe (Spared Houres, 1623) gives this a little differently.
Read, try, judge, and speak as you find, says old Suffolk.
Ready money is ready medicine.
Ready money will away.
Reason binds the man.
Reason governs the wise man and cudgels the fool.
Reason lies between the spur and the bridle.
Reason teaches young men to live well, and prepares old men to die well.
The Rich Cabinet, &c., 1616, fol. 124 verso.