German Proverb Quotations

When you sweep the stairs, you start at the top

The eyes believe themselves; the ears believe other people

Luck sometimes visits a fool, but it never sits down with him.

One enemy can harm you more than a hundred friends can do you good

One does evil enough when one does nothing good

Give up the smallest part of a secret, and the rest is no longer in your power

God gives, but man must open his hand

He who teaches a boy teaches three: a youth, a young man, and an old man

He who blackens others does not whiten himself

Little folks are fond of talking about what great folks do

Whoever invented work must not have had anything to do

Whoever cares to learn will always find a teacher

Those who get lost on the way to school will never find their way through life

To change and to change for the better are two different things.

Experience is a long road and an expensive school

Were there no fools, there would be no wise men

You have to take life as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it

When a man is happy, he does not hear the clock strike

Everything in life has an end. Only sausages have two.

Empty heads are very fond of long titles

Drinking a little too much is drinking a great deal too much

Except for the night, we could never know the stars

The wise man has long ears and a short tongue

A flatterer has water in one hand and fire in the other

No woman marries an old man for God's sake.

No man can do nothing and no man can do everything.

They love the old who do not know the new

In bad luck hold out; in good luck, hold in

If you don't light fires, smoke won't get in your eyes

If you put out another's candle, you also will be in the dark

Charity gives itself rich; covetousness hoards itself poor

Go to law for a sheep and lose your cow

The cats that drive the mice away are as good as they that catch them