Proverbs from Around the World

Explore a living collection of over 2,200 proverbs from more than 50 cultures. Discover timeless wisdom in English, French, Spanish, and Japanese — each saying with its meaning, origin, and literal translation.

• The pen is mightier than the sword — Writing and ideas have more influence than violence. (The line comes from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's play Richelieu (1839). The Cardinal, a churchman who cannot take up arms, discovers a plot against him and realizes his signature can do what soldiers cannot: "Beneath the rule of men entirely great, / The pen is mightier than the sword." Writers had long set the power of words against the power of weapons, but Bulwer-Lytton's wording is the one that stuck.)
• Where there's a will, there's a way — Determination will help you find a solution. (The idea was already proverbial in the 17th century: George Herbert's collection Outlandish Proverbs (1640) gives it as "To him that will, ways are not wanting." The brisker modern wording took over in the 19th century. It is a close cousin of "Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.")
• Blood is thicker than water — Family bonds are stronger than other relationships. (The medieval German beast epic Reinhart Fuchs (c. 1180) has an early version: kin-blood is not spoiled by water. In English, John Ray's proverb collection of 1670 includes "Blood is thicker than water," and Walter Scott used it in Guy Mannering (1815). A popular claim that the original was "the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" has no early source.)
• Two heads are better than one — Collaboration and diverse perspectives lead to better solutions. (The thought is ancient — Ecclesiastes 4:9 opens with "Two are better than one" — and it was current in English by the late Middle Ages. John Heywood fixed the familiar wording in his 1546 Dialogue of proverbs, the first great anthology of English sayings. It is said when two people solve together what neither could manage alone.)
• No pain, no gain — You must work hard to achieve results. (The idea is old: the rabbinic Ethics of the Fathers teaches that the reward is in proportion to the effort, and Robert Herrick's Hesperides (1648) has a two-line poem titled "No Paines, no Gaines." The clipped modern slogan became famous through Jane Fonda's workout videos of the 1980s.)
• What goes around comes around — Your actions will eventually return to affect you. (An American expression thought to have grown out of African-American speech in the mid-20th century. Its earliest known appearance in print is in a 1974 book by Eddie Stone, and it spread widely in the 1970s. It is often compared to karma, though it has no direct link to Hindu or Buddhist teaching.)
• Silence is golden — Sometimes it's better to say nothing. (Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1831) quotes a Swiss inscription: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden — speech is silver, silence is golden. The thought is often said to be Arabic or ancient, but Carlyle's is the first clear source for the silver-and-gold pairing.)
• The grass is always greener on the other side — What others have always seems better than what you have. (The Roman poet Ovid wrote in The Art of Love that the harvest is always richer in another man's fields. The modern pastoral version appears in American print by the late 1910s, and a 1924 song by Raymond Egan and Richard Whiting, "The Grass Is Always Greener in the Other Fellow's Yard," helped spread it.)
• A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush — It's better to have something certain now than to risk it for something uncertain in the future. (The idea goes back to the fable of the hawk and the nightingale, told by the Greek poet Hesiod and later counted among Aesop's: the hawk refuses to free the small bird in its claws for the promise of bigger prey. Early English versions vary the numbers — John Heywood's 1546 collection has "Better one bird in hand than ten in the wood" — and John Ray's collection of 1670 settles on two in the bush.)
• Practice makes perfect — Repeated practice leads to mastery. (An earlier English form, "use makes perfect," is recorded from the mid-16th century. The modern wording appears in John Adams's diary in 1761, where the young lawyer, reflecting on a clumsy start, wrote: "I was too incautious, and unartful in my Proceeding, but Practice makes perfect.")
• Birds of a feather flock together — People with similar interests or characteristics tend to associate with each other. (The first known English appearance is in William Turner's pamphlet The Rescuing of the Romish Fox (1545), which says that birds of one kind and color flock and fly together. The thought goes back further, to Ecclesiasticus 27:9: "The birds will resort unto their like." "Of a feather" means of the same plumage, and so of the same kind.)
• When the going gets tough, the tough get going — Strong people don't give up when faced with challenges. (A coaching motto from American football. The earliest printed examples, from 1953 and 1954, quote the coaches John Thomas and Frank Leahy. It is often credited to Joseph P. Kennedy, father of President John F. Kennedy, but no evidence confirms that. It plays on two senses of "going": conditions become hard, so the hardy get moving.)

From the blog: Speak of the Devil: Spooky Idioms From Around the World

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