English proverbs (T)

English proverbs (T)

Proverbs are popularly defined as short expressions of popular wisdom. Efforts to improve on the popular definition have not led to a more precise definition. The wisdom is in the form of a general observation about the world or a bit of advice, sometimes more nearly an attitude toward a situation.

T

• Take an old dirty, hungry, mangy, sick and wet dog and feed him and wash him and nurse him back to health, and he will never turn on you and bite you. This is how man and dog differ.
  • (Possibly Lord Byron)
• Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.
• Take it with a grain of salt.
  • Meaning: Regard it with a copious measure scepticism.
• Taking care of business.
• Talk of the devil and he's sure to appear.
• Talk the hind legs off a donkey.
  • Possible interpretation: Someone who never shuts up - often used in reference to London cab drivers
• Talking a mile a minute.
• Talking nineteen to the dozen.
• That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols (1888)
• The worth of a thing is what it will bring.
• There is luck in odd numbers.
• The teacher has not taught, until the student has learned.
• There are no endings: only new beginnings.
• There are no facts; only interpretations of facts.
• There are no small parts, only small actors.
• There are so many things to say that are better left unsaid.
• There are three types of lies - lies, damned lies, and statistics.
• There's a method in his madness.
• There is a thin line between love and hate
• There's always a calm before a storm.
  • or The calm before the storm.
• There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.
  • This comes from a Greek legend, as follows: One of the Argonauts returned from his voyage, and went home to his winery. He called for the local soothsayer, who had predicted before his voyage that he would die before he tasted another drop of his wine, from his vinery. As he finished saying this, he raised a cup filled with wine to his lips, in toast to the soothsayer, who said something in reply. Just then, he was called away to hunt a wild boar that was approaching, and died in his attempt to kill it. The phrase that the soothsayer said is translated best as, There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.
• There's money in muck.
  • or Where there's muck there's brass.
• There's more than one way to skin a cat.
• There's no accounting for taste.
  • From the Latin: De gustibus non est disputandum.
• There's no arguing with the barrel of a gun.
• There is no god except God.
• There's no peace for the wicked
• There's no place like home.
• There is no point of knowledge or wisdom if not dotted.
• There's no point in washing clean things.
  • Meaning: Don't fix things that are fine, just the bad things!
• There's no such thing as a free lunch.
• There's no time like the present.
• There is only eight years between success and failure in politics.
  • Jim Brown, Louisiana statesman
• There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.
  • or There's something rotten in Denmark.
  • Expresses strong suspicion.
  • Shakespeare's Hamlet (Marcellus in act 1, scene 4).

• A thief thinks everyone steals.
• Think before you speak.
• Thinking the worst always prepares you for the worst.
• This, too, shall pass.
• Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
• Those who run with pigs, smell like pigs.
• Time and tide wait for none.
• Time flies.
  • Latin: Tempus fugit!
• Time is gold.
• Tit for Tat.
• To burn the candle at both ends.
• To each, his own.
• To err is human; to forgive, divine. (Pope, Essay on Criticism)
• To have the fulfilled life, you must question the unanswerable and learn nothing.
  • Meaning: you must build your own opinions, but life is too short to waste trying to understand life
• To know the road ahead ask those coming back.
• To put something in a new jacket.
• Tomorrow is another day.
• Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians.
  • Implies that an organization is top-heavy, too many different directions to go and not enough ability to go along them.
• Too many cooks spoil the broth.
• Too much of one thing, good for nothing.
  • Meaning: Don't overspecialize
• Trapped between a rock and a hard place.
• Tread on a worm and it will turn.
  • This Proverb is generally used by Persons who have received gross insults and
    Injuries from others (which they have for some time bore with Patience) to excuse their
    being at last transported to some Warmth of Resentment and Passion. - Divers Proverbs, Nathan Bailey, 1721
• Trouble shared is trouble halved.
• The truth is in the wine.
  • Possible interpretation: A person will more freely divulge a secret when plied with alcohol.
  • A drunken man's words are a sober man's thoughts.
• Truth is stranger than fiction.
• The truth shall set you free, or The truth will set you free.
  • In the Bible, John 8:32.
• Truth will out.
  • Meaning: The truth will eventually come out, no matter how well it is hidden.
• Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.
• Try try but don't cry.
  • Meaning: Never give up in life.
  • Try and try until you suceed
• Two heads are better than one.
  • In a multitude of counselors there is more wisdom (than in few)
• Two things prolong your life: A quiet heart and a loving wife.
• Two wrongs don't make a right.
  • Also jocularly formed from above: Two wrongs don't make a right - but three lefts make a right.
• Two's company; three's a crowd.