W.C. Hazlitt, comp. English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases. 1907.
Vain-glory to What the heart
Vain-glory blossoms but never bears.
Valour that parleys is near yielding.
Valour would fight, but discretion would run away.
Varnishing hides a crack.
Vauxhall slice (A).
A very thin cut of ham. According to a well-known story a carver at the Gardens was expected to be able to cover at least an acre with a single ham.
Veal, quoth the Dutchman.
Love’s Labours’ Lost, 1598. I presume this is a satire on the Dutch pronunciation of Well.
Veal will be cheap; calves fall.
A jeer for those who lose the calves of their legs, by, &c.—R.
Venture a small fish to catch a great one.
Il faut hazarder un petit poisson pour prendre un grand. Fr.—R.
Venture not all in one bottom.
Venture thy opinion, but not thyself for thy opinion.
Verbum sap.
i.e., Verbum [sufficit] sapienti.—Letters of Eminent Literary Men, 148. “A word to the wise is enough, and many words won’t fill a bushel.”—Poor Richard Improved, 1758. “A buon intenditore poche parole (or, parlar laconico—Torriano). Ital. A bon entendeur il ne faut que demie parole. Fr. A bom entendedor poucas palavras.—Port. On the title of Decker’s Guls Horne-Booke, 1609, there is the form: Al Savio meza parola Basta. In Barry’s Ram Alley, 1611 (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, x. 301), Throat uses the term: “Pauca sapienti.”
Very, like a whale.
Vice makes virtue shine.
Virgins in Norfolk wear very little shoes.
They must be very young.
Virtue and a trade are the best portion for children.
Virtue is of noble birth, but riches take the wall of her.
Virtue is tied to no degrees of men.
Virtue never grows old.
Virtue would not go far, if a little vanity walked not with it.
Virtues all agree, but vices fight one another.
Vox et præterea nihil.
Vox Populi vox Dei.
Title of a tract produced about 1547, and inserted in Hazlitt’s Pop. Poetry, iii.; Gascoigne’s Posies, 1575 (Works, by Hazlitt, i. 151). But Mr. Gomme tells me that he finds it to have been a popular cry as early as Edward II.
Wait for the moonshine in the water.
Wake not a sleeping lion.
Countryman’s New Commonwealth, 1647.
Walls have ears.
Waltham calves. Essex.
Want goes by his door.
Want is the whetstone of wit.
Tarlton’s Jests, 1638 (Old Engl. J. B., ii. 236). A various reading of, Necessity is the mother of invention.
Want makes strife / ’twixt man and wife.
Want of care / admits despair.
Want will be my master.
Said by a person who wishes for something beyond his reach.
Wanton kisses are keys of sin.
Wanton kittens may make sober cats.
War and physic are governed by the eye.
War is death’s feast.
War is sweet to them that know it not.
Bellum Erasmi, translated into English, 1533, sign. A 2. “War seemeth sweet to such as have not tried it.”—Misfortunes of Arthur, 1587, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 291. Dulce bellum inexpertis.
War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows.
La guerre fait les larrons, et la paix les amene au gibet. Fr. See Howell’s Letters, ed. 1754, p. 335; letter dated 2 Sept. 1645.
War must be waged by waking men.
Ware and Wades-mill are worth all London. Hertfordshire.
This, I assure you, is a masterpiece of the vulgar wits in this county, wherewith they endeavour to amuse travellers, as if Ware, a thoroughfare market, and Wades-mill, part of a village lying two miles north thereof, were so prodigiously rich, as to countervail the wealth of London. The fallacy lieth in the homonymy of Ware; here not taken for that town so named, but appellatively for all vendible commodities. It is rather a riddle than a proverb.—R.
Ware skins, quoth Grubber, when he flung the louse into the fire.
Ware wapps [? wasps], quoth William Day.
“Wapps, most likely wasp; but it may mean a large truss of straw, which wapps and whips signify, and the warning may be to those walking below some hay-loft.”—Notes and Queries, March 12, 1878.
Warmester’s colt.
In 1565–6 a ballad was entered by Thomas Purfoot the elder entitled: To beware how they ryde upon Warmester’s Colt.” See Hazlitt’s Bibl. Coll., 2nd S., v. Ballads.
Wars are pleasant in the ear, not in the eye.
Wars bring scars.
The Italians say, Quando la guerra comincia, s’ apre l’ inferno. When war begins, hell opens. Guerra, caza, y amores, / por un placer mil dolores. Span.—R.
Wash your hands often, your feet seldom, and your head never.
Wasps haunt the honey-pot.
Waste makes want.
Waste not, want not.
Wat Wink.
See Towneley Mysteries, 30.
Watched pot never boils.
Water afar off quencheth not fire.
Water breeds frogs in the belly, but wine kills worms.
Agua fria sarna cria, agua roxa sarna escosca. Span.—R.
Water, fire, and soldiers quickly make room.
Water is a waster.
Water trotted is as good as oats.
Giving a horse on a journey a drink of water, provided you trot afterwards, is as good as a feed of oats. N. and Q., 3rd. S., xii. 488.
Waving as the wind.
We are all Adam’s children, but silk makes the difference.
We are apt to believe what we wish for.
We are born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed.
We are bound to be honest, but not to be rich.
We are ever young enough to sin; never old enough to repent.
We are fools one to another.
We are more mindful of injuries than benefits.
We are never so happy or unfortunate as we think ourselves.
We are usually the best men when in the worst health.
We can have no more of the fox but the skin.
We can live without our friends, but not without our neighbours.
We cannot come to honour under coverlet.
We carry our greatest enemies within us.
We carry our neighbour’s failings in sight; we throw our own crimes over our shoulders.
We desire but one feather out of your goose.
We do nothing but in the presence of two great witnesses.
God and our own conscience.
We easily forget our faults when nobody knows them.
We hate delay, yet it makes us wise.
We have all forgotten more than we remember.
Rabelais, iii. 18, ed. 1807.
We have brought our hogs to a fair market.
Title of a tract printed in 1651. “To bring one’s pigs to a wrong market,” occurs in Cartwright’s Ordinary, written before 1634. Compare He hath brought, &c., supra.
We have fished fair, and caught a frog.
Part of the title of a satirical tract, printed in 1649.
We hounds killed the hare, quoth the lapdog.
We in diversely, but end alike.
We know not which stone the scorpion lurks under.
We make ourselves fools at our own charges.
We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
We may not expect a good whelp from an ill dog.
We must brew as we bake.
Ingelend’s Disobedient Child, about 1563, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ii. 295:—
We must do as we may, if we cannot do as we would.
We must fall down before a fox in season.
We must live by the quick, not by the dead.
Heywood’s If you know not me, &c., 1605.
We never find that a fox dies in the dirt of his own ditch.
We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.
We play not for shoe-buckles.
We row in the same boat.
We see not what sits on our shoulder.
We seldom find out that we are flattered.
We sell our horse to get us hay.
We shall catch birds to-morrow.
We shall have rain: the fleas bite.
We shall lie all alike in our graves.
Æqua tellus pauperi recluditur regumque pueris.—Horat. Mors sceptra ligonibus æquat. No occupa mas pies do tierra el cuerpo del papa que el del sacristan, aunque sea mas alto el uno que el otro, que al entrar en el hoyo todos nos agustamos y encojemos, ò nos hacen ajustar y encoger, mal que nos pese, y a buenas noches. Span.—R.
We should publish our joys, and conceal our griefs.
We soon believe what we desire.
The wish is father to the thought, as Shakespeare says.
We spit in his hat on Thursday, and wiped it off on Friday.
Walpole’s Letters, ii. 195. He calls it “a new fashionable proverb.” But it was rather a temporary saying. It arose out of a foolish and vulgar bet.
We will not lose a Scot.
That is, anything, how inconsiderable soever, that we can save or recover. During the enmity between the two nations, they had little esteem of, and less affection for, a Scotchman in the English border.—R.
Weak men had need be witty.
Weak things united become strong.
Weal and women cannot pan, / but woe and women can.
Pan = to fit in with or harmonise. See Atkinson’s Clevel. Gloss., 1868, p. 371.
Wealth got by labour is sweet in the enjoyment.
New Help to Discourse, 1721, p. 135.
Wealth is best known by want.
Wealth is like rheum: it falleth on the weakest parts.
Wealth is not his who gets it, but his who enjoys it.
Wealth makes worship.
Por dinero balla el perro. Port. La robba fà star il tignoso al balcone. Ital.
Weapons bode peace.
Wear a horn and blow it not.
Weather meet to set paddocks abroad in.
Weaver’s beef of Colchester.
Diary of the Rev. John Ward, 112. “That is, sprats, caught hereabouts, and brought hither in incredible abundance, whereon the poor weavers (numerous in this town) make much of their repast; cutting rands, rumps, sirloins, chines, out of them, as they go on.”—R.
Wedding is destiny.
Wedlock’s a padlock.
Weeds want no sowing.
Weening is not measure.
Weigh justly and sell dearly.
Pesa giusto e vende caro. Ital.—R.
Weight and measure take away strife.
Welcome death, quoth the rat, when the trap fell.
Welcome evil, if thou comest alone.
Welcome, is the best cheer.
[Greek]. In muneribus res præstantissima mens est. Super omnia vultus accessere boni.—R.
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.
Well begun is half done.
[Greek]. Dimidium facti qui cæpit habet.—Horat. Obra empezada medio alabada.—Span. Il più duro passo é quello della soglia.—Ital.
Well guessed, Kath., there’s neither to lack nor to leave.
Well hit, quoth Hickman, when he smote his wife on the buttocks with a beer pot.
Interlude of the Four Elements (circa 1519), in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 19.
Well-lathered is half-shaven.
Well may he smell fire whose gown burns.
Well may he stumble that chooses a stony way.
Well might the cat wink when both her eyes were out.
Well-rhymed, tutor, brains and stairs.
Well thriveth that God loveth.
How the Goode Wif, &c., in Hazlitt’s Pop. Poetry, i.
Well thriveth that well suffereth.
“Wel abit [abides] that wel may tholye.”—Proverbs of Hendyng (Rel. Antiq., i. 115). Vincit qui patitur.
Well to work and make a fire, / doth both care and skill require.
Well, well, is a word of malice. Cheshire.
In other places, if you say, Well, well, they will ask you whom you threaten.—R.
Well wots the cat whose beard he licketh.
MS. C.C.C. Camb. (Wright’s Essays, i. 149–50). Wel wot hure cat whas berd he lickat. “Murilegus bene scit cujus barbam linguere suescit.”—Leonine verse in a MS. Trin. Coll. Camb., 12th cent. (ibid.) But Heywood says, “The cat knoweth whose lips she lickth well enough,” which is the form adopted by more recent collectors, yet not, in my opinion, the correct one. Chat conoit bien qi barbe il lesche. Old Fr. The proverb is in Portuguese and Italian also.
Wellington roundheads.
Proverbial formerly in Taunton for a violent fanatic.—R.
Well’s a fret: / he that dies for love will not be hanged for debt. Nottinghamshire.
See N. and Q., 1st S., viii. 197.
Welsh faith.
The equivalent of the Punica fides of the Romans. The saying is said to have arisen during the wars between the English and the Welsh.
Were there no fools, bad ware would not pass.
Were there no hearers, there would be no backbiters.
What, a Bishop’s wife! eat and drink in your gloves?
What a day may bring a day may take away.
What a dust have I raised! quoth the fly upon the coach.
What a wonderful country is Lincolnshire.
Where pigs … soap and cows … fire!
See Halliwell, p. 521. A variant version of that given under Lincolnshire, supra, and by Ray, 1670.
What, again! quoth Palmer.
What, again! quoth Paul, when his wife made him cuckold the second time.
What better is the house that the daw rises soon?
What bread men break is broken to them again.
Taylor’s Wit and Mirth, 1629.
What can you expect of a hog but his bristles?
What cannot be cured must be endured.
“What cannot be eschewed, must be embraced.”—M. W. of Windsor, 1602.
What can’t be done by might / may be done by sleight.
What children hear at home, doth soon fly abroad.
What comes from the heart goes to the heart.
What cometh by kind costeth nothing.
What costs little is little esteemed.
What does not float is rotten.
Qual che non guazza e fracido. Ital.
What d’ye call him.
This now common colloquialism occurs in the Paston Letters, about 1470.
What d’ye lack.
The old slang or proverbial term for a shopkeeper, derived from the practice of touting at the door for custom. “For I’me perswaded that there’s never a What lack you sir? in all the city but is sensible of our calamity.”—The Stage Players Complaint, 1641, sign. A 3.
What God made, he never mars.
What God will, / no frost can kill.
What good can it do an ass to be called a lion?
What greater crime / than loss of time?
What has been, may be.
What have I to do with Bradshaw’s windmill? Leicestershire.
What have I to do with other men’s matters?—R.
What he gets, he gets out of the fire.
What I lost i’ the salt fish, I gained i’ the red herrings.
What is a pound of butter among a kennel of hounds?
What is a tree of cherries worth to four in a company?
Lottery of 1567 (Kempe’s Loseley MSS., p. 208. “This devise,” observes Mr. K., “is of frequent occurrence; it was probably a proverbial expression.”
What is a workman without his tools?
What is bought is cheaper than a gift.
Mais barato he o comprado que o pedido. Port.
What is bred in the bone will not out in the flesh.
Walker’s Parœm., 1672. Camden reverses the order of the sentence. “Chi l’ha per natura fin alla fossa dura. Ital. That which comes naturally continues till death. Lo que en la léche se mama en la mortája se derráma. Span. The Latins and Greeks have many proverbial sayings to this purpose, as Lupus pilum mutat non mentem; The wolf may change his hair (for wolves and horses grow grey with age) but not his disposition. [Greek].—Aristoph. You can never bring a crabfish to go straight forwards. And [Greek]. Wood that grows crooked will hardly be straightened. Quem mas manha, ha, tarde ou nunca as perdera. Port.”—R.
What is done by night appears by day.
What is every man’s business is no man’s business.
What is got in the county is lost in the hundred.
What is got in the whole sum is lost in particular reckonings.—R.
What is got over the devil’s back is spent under his belly.
What is got by oppression or extortion is many times spent in riot and luxury. Quel che vien di ruffa a raffa se ne và en baffa. Ital. Ce que le gantelet gaigne, le gorgerin le mange. Fr.—R.
What! is it nothing but up and ride?
What is not wisdom is danger.
What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison.
“L’un mort dont l’autre vit. Fr. Lo que uno desecha otro lo ruega. Span.—R. Quod aliis cibus est, aliis fuat acre venenum.—Lucretius, iv. 640.
What Lancashire thinks to-day, England thinks to-morrow.
What maintains one vice would bring up two children.
What matters it to a blind man that his father could see?
What may be done at any time will be done at no time.
What! need a rich man to be a thief?
What! nowhere such a vavasour?
“This comes from, or at least through, Chaucer, who sums up his description of the ‘frankeleyn’:—
What pretty things men will make for money, quoth the old woman, when she saw a monkey.
What she wants in up and down, she hath in round about.
What should a cow do with a nutmeg?
What should be done with an old wife, but make gunpowder of her?
What soberness conceals / drunkenness reveals.
Quod est in corde sobrii est in ore ebrii. [Greek].—Plutarch, [Greek]. Erasmus cites to this purpose a sentence out of Herodotus: [Greek]: when wine sinks, words swim. And Pliny had an elegant saying to this purpose: Vinum usque adeò mentis arcana prodit, ut mortifera etiam inter pocula loquantur homines, et nè per jugulum quidem redituras voces contineant. Quid non ebrietas designat? operta recludit.—R. We are here reminded of the Hebrew legend of Noah or Noe.
What some win in the Hundred, they lose in the Shire.
What! starve at a cook’s shop?
Endurer la soif aupres d’ une fontaine. Fr.
What the eye seeth not, the heart doth not rue.
“At E nocht seis, hart nocht [char.]arnis.”—Ravis, Off Good Women, Shakespeare Soc. ed. 1870, p. 108; MS. of the 16th cent. in R. A., i. 207. Also (with an immaterial variation) in Camden’s Rem., 1614, p. 312. “Le cœur ne veut douloir ce que l’œil no peut veoir. Fr. Ojos que no veen, coraçon no quebrantan. Span.”—R.
What the good wife spares, the cat eats.
What the heart thinketh the tongue speaketh.