Quotes about Proverbs

62 Sourced Quotes

The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram; and the proverbs of nations, which embody the commonsense of nations, have the brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit.

Edwin Percy Whipple

The hope of the world is that wisdom can arrest conflict between brothers. I believe that war is the deadly harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds. And I find grounds for this belief in the wisdom literature of Proverbs. It says in effect this: Panic strikes like a storm and calamity comes like a whirlwind to those who hate knowledge and ignore their God.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

In Proverbs we read: 'He that winneth souls is wise.' If any man, women, or child by a godly life and example can win one soul to God, his life will not have been a failure. He will have outshone all the mighty men of his day, because he will have set a stream in motion that will flow on and on forever and ever.

Dwight L. Moody

Proverbs embody the current and practical philosophy of an age or nation.

William Fleming

All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs, and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs, by imitation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

God pity the man or the nation wise in proverbs, I told myself, for there is much misery and much error gone into the collecting of such a store.

Proverbs are all very fine when there's nothing to worry you, but when you're in real trouble, they're not a bit of help.

Lucy Maud Montgomery

The truth was that Emerson did not often refer to Scripture (after he announced the text, which was invariably from the Bible) because the Bible was no longer for him an object of study; it was an example for him for emulation. He was interested in his own primary, personal religious experience and that of his parishioners, not in repeating and deferring to the reported religious experiences of long departed historical personages. When he studied, say, the Book of Proverbs, he no longer thought of himself as a commentator, but as the potential author of a similar book.

Robert D. Richardson

The French have a saying: "Time will not consecrate that in which she has been ignored." Bear this admonition ever in mind for it is deeply true.
And so, while I say we will neither hasten nor delay, let us not delay. All of which is summed up in the proverbs:
Haste makes waste.
Delays are dangerous.
He who hesitates is lost.
Be bold yet prudent.

Proverbs are mental gems gathered in the diamond districts of the mind.

William R. Alger

King David and King Solomon
Led merry, merry lives,
With many, many lady friends,
And many, many wives;
But when old age crept over them—
With many, many qualms!—
King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
And King David wrote the Psalms.

James Ball Naylor

"... whatever... you pretend... if any of you be a prayerless person, or a scoffer, or a lover of evil company (Proverbs 13:20), in a word, if you are not a holy, strict, and self-denying Christian, you cannot be saved." (Hebrews 12:14; Matthew 15:14).

The woman described in Proverbs 31 is not some ideal that exists out there; she is present in each one of us when we do even the smallest things with valor

Rachel Held Evans

Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

Proverbs contradict each other. That is the wisdom of a nation.

Stanisław Jerzy Lec

Proverbs save us the trouble of thinking. What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.

The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful. PROVERBS 12:22

Deborah Smith Pegues

Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life.

The name of the Lord (says the Scripture) is a strong tower; thither the righteous flee and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). Let us secure His favor and He will lead us through the journey of this life and at length receive us to a better.

Proverbs contain the value system of the time of their origin.

Wolfgang Mieder

The Book of Proverbs deals very hard blows against sluggards, and Christian ministers do well frequently to denounce the great sin of idleness, which is the mother of a huge family of sins.

Charles Spurgeon

As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity, I collected some of their Proverbs.

You are right to listen to proverbs. They are short sayings made out of long experience.

Zora Neale Hurston

I do admit to mocking atheists, because mockery is a legitimate form of debate according to my rule Book. God Himself mocks evil men who refuse His moral government (see Proverbs 1:26-27).

I do exceedingly commend the Judges that are curious and almost subtil, Astuti (which is the word used in the Proverbs of Solomon in a good sense, when it is to a good end) to invent reasons and means to make Acts, according to the just intent of the parties, and to avoid wrong and injury which by rigid rules might be wrought out of the Act.

Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet

Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed.

Music-hall songs provide the dull with wit, just as proverbs provide them with wisdom.

W. Somerset Maugham

The best models of English writing are Shakespeare and the Old Testament, especially the book of Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. … In writing English the most important quality that you can acquire is style. It makes all the difference to anyone who reads what you write, whether you use the best phrases in the best way.

Aleister Crowley

The "sayings" of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech — it is a gift from heart to heart.

.. since then I have found consolation in Blake; 'Without Contraries is no progression', he says in his Proverbs of Hell. And Baudelaire's idea that 'Variety is an essential condition of life' seems to me to be in perfect accord with my aspirations and with my intention, as a Futurist painter, to put life in the place occupied by reasoning in the art of the Cubist period.