John Heywood

John Heywood was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of proverbs. He fled England for the Low Countries to avoid persecution as a Catholic. Many of his proverbs had appeared in writing already, and it is unlikely that he invented any of them.

Sourced

• The loss of wealth is loss of dirt,
  As sages in all times assert;
  The happy man's without a shirt.
  • Be Merry Friends

• Let the world slide, let the world go;
  A fig for care, and a fig for woe!
  If I can't pay, why I can owe,
  And death makes equal the high and low.
  • Be Merry Friends

Proverbs (1546)

• Haste maketh waste.
  • Pt. I, ch. 2

• Good to be merry and wise.
  • Pt. I, ch. 2

• Look ere ye leap.
  • Pt. I, ch. 2

• He that will not when he may,
  When he would he shall have nay.
  • Pt. I, ch. 3

• The fat is in the fire.
  • Pt. I, ch. 3

• When the sun shineth, make hay.
  • Pt. I, ch. 3

• The tide tarrieth no man.
  • Pt. I, ch. 3

• Fast bind, fast find.
  • Pt. I, ch. 3

• And while I at length debate and beat the bush,
  There shall step in other men and catch the birds.
  • Pt. I, ch. 3

• Wedding is destiny,
  And hanging likewise.
  • Pt. I, ch. 3

• A hard beginning maketh a good ending.
  • Pt. I, ch. 4

• Like will to like.
  • Pt. I, ch. 4

• When the sky falleth we shall have larks.
  • Pt. I, ch. 4

• Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.
  • Pt. I, ch. 4

• Hold their noses to grindstone.
  • Pt. I, ch. 5

• The nearer to the church, the further from God.
  • Pt. I, ch. 9

• Better is to bow than break.
  • Pt. I, ch. 9

• It hurteth not the tongue to give fair words.
  • Pt. I, ch. 9

• Two heads are better than one.
  • Pt. I, ch. 9

• To tell tales out of school.
  • Pt. I, ch. 10

• To hold with the hare and run with the hound.
  • Pt. I, ch. 10

• All is well that ends well.
  • Pt. I, ch. 10

• Of a good beginning cometh a good end.
  • Pt. I, ch. 10

• Better late than never.
  • Pt. I, ch. 10
    • Recorded by Livy "Potius sero quam numquam." book IV, sec. 23

• Ill weed groweth fast.
  • Pt. I, ch. 10

• Beggars should be no choosers.
  • Pt. I, ch. 10

• To rob Peter and pay Paul.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• A man may well bring a horse to water,
  But he cannot make him drink without he will.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• Rome was not built in one day.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• Children learn to creep ere they can learn to go.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• Better is half a loaf than no bread.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• Nought venture nought have.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• Children and fools cannot lie.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• Who is worse shod than the shoemaker's wife?
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• One good turn asketh another.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• A hair of the dog that bit us.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• But in deed,
  A friend is never known till a man have need.
  • Pt. II, ch. 1

• A woman hath nine lives like a cat.
  • Pt. II, ch. 4

• A penny for your thought.
  • Pt. II, ch. 4

• You cannot see the wood for the trees.
  • Pt. II, ch. 4

• Tit for tat.
  • Pt. II, ch. 4

• Three may keep counsel, if two be away.
  • Pt. II, ch. 5

• Many hands make light work.
  • Pt. II, ch. 5

• There is no fire without some smoke.
  • Pt. II, ch. 5

• Set the cart before the horse.
  • Pt. II, ch. 7

• The more the merrier.
  • Pt. II, ch. 7

• It is better to be
  An old man's darling than a young man's warling.
  • Pt. II, ch. 7

• The moon is made of greene cheese.
  • Pt. II, ch. 7

• I know on which side my bread is buttered.
  • Pt. II, ch. 7

• Love me, love my dog.
  • Pt. II, ch. 9
    • Recorded in the 11th century by Bernard of Clairvaux in one of his sermons as a common proverb.

• An ill wind that bloweth no man to good.
  • Pt. II, ch. 9

• For when I gave you an inch, you took an ell.
  • Pt. II, ch. 9

• Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake?
  • Pt. II, ch. 9

• Every man for himself and God for us all.
  • Pt. II, ch. 9

• Though he love not to buy the pig in the poke.
  • Pt. II, ch. 9

• This hitteth the nail on the head.
  • Pt. II, ch. 11