Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Proverbs

Proverbs are sometimes metaphorical, but mostly, they are based on common human experience. Every culture has its own proverbs. In history, the Bible with the Book of Proverbs and the Latin culture in general played a considerable role in distributing proverbs across Europe. Proverbs are useful in writing, whether you take a proverb and make a story or poem out of it or you apply it to an already existing but not quite finished work.

I started getting tweets from a Twitter site called Ancient Proverbs. Each time they send me one, I realize once again how universal and how regardless of time and place the ancients’ words sound.

Here are a few proverbs from Twitter’s Ancient Proverbs:

Three methods to learn wisdom: 1 reflection, which is noblest; 2 imitation, which is easiest; & 3 experience, which is the bitterest. –Confucius

One never needs their humor as much a when they argue with a fool. -Chinese Proverbs

The innkeeper loves a drunkard, but not for a son-in-law. -Jewish Proverb

The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure. -Chinese Proverb

Bad is never good until worse happens. -Danish proverb

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. -African proverb

Every path has its puddle. -English proverb

Forever is composed of nows. -Emily Dickinson

What is told into the ear of a man is often heard a hundred miles away. -Chinese Proverbs

Who ceases to be a friend never was one. -Greek Proverb