This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Italian Proverbs
On a long journey even a straw is heavy.
Enough | Good | Man |
One may have good eyes and yet see nothing.
Action | Man | Prejudice | Reason |
Never speak of a rope in the house of one who was hanged.
Man |
One who makes his bed must lie in it.
Determination | People | Will | Work |
Preventing someone from falling is better than helping him get up.
People |
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 |
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 liar is not believed when he speaks the truth.
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 |
To the person with little shame, the whole world is his.
Capacity | Self | Time | Unity |
The mills of god grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small.
Comfort | Time | Will | Loss |
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 |