This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Italian Proverbs
The buckets take to fighting with the well, and get their heads broken.
Life | Life | Little | Practice | Precept | Sense | Govern |
One devil drives out another.
Better | Organization | Virtue | Virtue |
That which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
Dawn | Evolution | History | Individual | Life | Life | Sense | Survival | Truth |
The dog that is quarrelsome and not strong, woe to his hide.
Memory | Order | Rank |
The devil is bad because he is old.
Ability | Age | Art | Control | Culture | Humor | Memory | Need | Time | Work | World | Art |
The first blow is as good as two.
Courage | Mankind | Men | Peace | Strength | Tears | Will |
Two women and a goose make a market.
Doubt | Irony | Life | Life | Means | Need | Plenty | Self | Superiority | Understanding | Work | World | Afraid |
What a fool does in the end, the wise man does in the beginning.
When a wife sins the husband is never innocent.
Education | Ideas | Justify | Knowledge | Learning | Literature | Need | People | Question | Study | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Value |
Who is in fear of every leaf must not go into the wood.
Men | Pain | Will |
War makes robbers, and peace hangs them.
Authenticity | Good | Life | Life | Meaning | Means | Mystery | Thought | Worth | Thought |
Who has no money must have no wishes.
Men | Worry |
The mills of god grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small.
Comfort | Time | Will | Loss |
When all men say you are an ass it is time to bray.
Failure | Future | Life | Life | Mistake | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Right | Failure |
The world wags on with three things: doing, undoing, and pretending.
Ability | Adventure | Character | Comfort | Convictions | Daring | Ideas | Injustice | Injustice | Love | Man | Men | Qualities | Sound | Suffering | Talking | Time | Universe | Will | Witness | Blessed | Old | Winning |
When the fox preaches, take care of yourselves, hens.
Self |
While two dogs are fighting for a bone, a third runs away with it.
The virtue of silence is a great piece of knowledge.
Public | Question |
When wise men play mad pranks they do it with a vengeance.
Respect | System | Respect |
Where the hedge is low everyone will cross it.
Enough | Self |