This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Italian Proverbs
Substance is not enough, accident is also required.
Ability | Coercion | Power |
The buyer has need of a hundred eyes, the seller of but one.
Design |
The ass does not know the worth of this tail till he has lost it.
Books | Character | Effort | Hope | Judgment | Will | Work | Realism |
One enemy is too much, and a hundred friends are not enough.
Smooth words make smooth ways.
World |
The danger past, the saint cheated.
Children | Memory |
My No is as good as your Yes.
Think |
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 |
So good that he is good for nothing.
Effort | Good | Internet | People | Power | Promise | Time |
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 sun is still beautiful, though ready to set.
Wants | Work |
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 |
The same fire purifies gold and consumes straw.
Vision | Work |
The mills of god grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small.
Comfort | Time | Will | Loss |