List of French Proverbs in English Love Life Friendship
French Sayings of the Day
A living dog is better than a dead lion.
French Proverb
Women, money, and wine have their balm and their harm. French Proverbs |
Honour blossoms on the grave. |
The stable wears out a horse more than the road. French Sayings |
Long on hair, short on brains. |
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. |
Drop by drop wears away the stone. |
Children and fools have merry lives. |
The word of a woman is as a little feather on the water. |
Write injuries in the sand, kindnesses in marble. |
One must step back to make the better leap. |
So many men, so many opinions. |
You have to give time some time. |
Tasty is the chicken that is fed by someone else. |
He who curbs his desires will always be rich enough. |
Be a horse ever so well shod, he may slip. |
Shoemakers are always the worst shod. |
Fine and fine make but a slender doublet. |
Hatred watches while friendship sleeps. |
Snakes prefer to hide under flowers. |
Elbow-grease is a great preventative of disease. |
He who sows the seed of discord works in the devil's barn. |
Widows comfort themselves when they remarry, widowers take revenge. |
The tree does not fall at the first stroke. |
One does not always hit what one aims at. |
Since the wine is drawn it must be drunk. |
None are more haughty than a common place person raised to power. |
If you give a gift to a rich man, the devil sniggers. |
You cannot be very smart if you have never done anything foolish. |
The longer the way, the more tired the man. |
Man is not man, but a wolf to those he does not know. |
Even the smallest little bush casts some shadow. |
The merchant who gains not, loseth. |
Save a thief from the gallows and he will cut your throat. |
Trust is the mother of exasperation. |
If the fire does not burn you the smoke will blacken you. |
Many a one is good because he can do no mischief. |
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. |
Don't teach fishes to swim. |
Ingratitude is a kind of weakness; the clever are never ungrateful. |
The wine given to your workmen is that for which you get the best paid. |
Small profits are good if they come often. |
Jest not with the eye, or religion. |
He who goes to collect wool may come back shorn. |
One good argument is worth more than ten better ones. |
You cannot make bricks without straw. |
| |
Something is better than nothing. French Proverbs |
Marriages are written in heaven. - French Sayings in English |
A good husband should be deaf and a good wife should be blind. French Proverbs Download or Share Images |
God saves the moon from the wolves. French Proverbs |
God helps him who helps himself. French Proverbs |
God often visits us, but most of the time we are not at home. French Proverbs |
It is better to have to do with God than with his saints. French Proverbs |
A silent woman is a gift from God. French Proverbs About God |
He who gives to the poor loans to God. French Sayings About God |
He who is near the church is often far from God. |
Every one for himself, and God for us all. |
The nearer the church the farther from God. |
Saint cannot if God will not. |
He sins as much who holds the bag as he who puts into it. |
The noise is so great one cannot hear God thunder. |
For a web begun God sends thread. |
When God sends flour the devil carries off the sack. |
The monk that begs for God's sake begs for two. |
When the woman wants something God quakes. |
The people's voice, God's voice. |
What a woman wills God wills. |
To grow rich one has only to turn his back on God. |
Pray, pray very much; but beware of telling God what you want. |
Why hide from God what the saints already know? |
A party of two is that of God; of three of the king; of four is of the devil. |
Trust not to God but upon good security. |
The secret of two is God's secret, the secret of three is everybody's secret. |
He does not guard himself well who is not always on his guard. |
Beauty and folly are often companions. |
French Proverbs About Love |
Likeness is the mother of love. |
Love expels jealousy. |
Love teaches asses to dance. |
Love Bertrand love his dog. |
Love is often the fruit of marriage. |
Love me little and love me long. |
Love teaches even asses to dance. |
Love does much, money everything. |
Love and lordship like no fellowship. |
Love makes time pass; time makes love pass. |
Love, a cough, and smoke will not remain secret. |
Love does wonders, but money makes marriages. |
Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass. |
Love subdues everything except the recreant's heart. |
Love never dies of starvation, but often of indigestion. |
Love, a cough, smoke, and money, cannot long be hid. |
Love makes time pass away, and time makes love pass away. |
Love is the dawn of marriage, and marriage is the sunset of love. |
Loving with the eyes only, has blinded a lot of fools. |
He who marries for love has good nights and bad days. |
In love, there is always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek. |
Who is born a chicken loves scratching. |
Always in love, never married. |
Real love is when you don't have to tell each other. |
Who loves well is slow to forget. |
In love and war don't seek counsel. |
One always returns to one's first love. |
Without bread and wine even love will pine. |
Who loves well, chastises well. |
Pity is akin to love. |
To love is to choose. |
By beating love decays. |
A good hater,a good lover. |
Old cats love young mice. |
Never did capon love a hen. |
One grows used to love and to fire. |
He has a very hard heart who does not love May. |
The only victory over love is flight. |
It is loving too much to die of love. |
Where there's music there can be love. |
Some fathers love another man's daughter most. |
The first love letters are written with the eyes. |
The love that you die from is too big. |
To love and to be wise are two different things. |
Being loved is the best way of being useful. |
Where love sets the table food tastes at its best. |
Small gifts maintain friendship, big ones maintain love. |
A fence between makes love more keen. |
It is overdoing the thing to die of love. |
There is no love without jealousy. |
Mother's love is ever in its spring. |
What you love is always beautiful. |
To be loved is the best way of being useful. |
The greatest hate springs from the greatest love. |
Old love and old brands kindle at all seasons. |
When the furze is in bloom, my love's in tune. |
Try to reason about love, and you will lose your reason. |
When we cannot get what we love, we must love what is within our reach. |
The pleasure of love lasts but a moment, The pain of love lasts a lifetime. |
For most people love of justice is no more than the fear to suffer injustice. |
If you want to love your household as much as your bread then you will have to knead your wife like dough. |
About Life |
Life is made up of tomorrows. |
Life is like an onion, which one peels crying. |
Life is a dung pie from which you take a bite every day. |
Life is half spent before one knows what life is. |
Most men employ the earlier part of their life to make the other miserable. |
Take away my good name, take away my life. |
A pig's life, short and sweet. |
We must learn from life how to suffer it. |
He, who more than he is worth doth spend, E'en makes a rope, his life to end. |
A merry life forgets father and mother. |
To enjoy life is worth so much more than it costs. |
A handful of good life is better than seven barrels of learning. |
He who marries on a rainy day will be happy for the rest of his life. |
Smoke, floods, and a troublesome wife, are enough to drive a man out of his life. |
The first half of life is spent in longing for the second, the second half in regretting the first. |
French Proverbs about Friendship |
Friends are lost by calling too often and by not calling often enough. |
A friend is known in time of need. |
Little presents maintain friendship. |
A clown enriched knows neither relation nor friend. |
The interested friend is a swallow on the roof. |
He who lends to a friend loses twice. |
Long absence changes friends. |
Adversity is the touchstone of friendship. |
He is called clever who cheats and plunders his friend. |
Night has no friend. |
A friend's meat is soon ready. |
The most friendly fortune trips up your heels. |
I love my friends but I love myself more. |
A hedge between keeps friendship green. |
The friendship of a great man is like the shadow of a bush soon gone. |
It is more disgraceful to suspect our friends than to be deceived by them. |
Better to have a friend on the road than gold and silver in your purse. |
The false friend is like the shadow of a sun-dial. |
Old friends and new reckonings. |
A friend to my table and wine, is no good neighbour. |
He cannot be a friend to any one who is his own enemy. |
A girl without a friend is like the spring without roses. |
The sweetest grapes are picked from the vineyard of friendship. |
One has always strength enough to bear the misfortunes of one's friends. |
Two sparrows on the same ear of corn are not long friends. |
Suspicion is the poison of friendship. |
It is good to have friends in all parts. |
Do not let grass grow on the path of friendship. |
A dead man has neither relations nor friends. |
Rich people never know who their friends are. |
Trade knows neither friends or kindred. |
He never was a friend who has ceased to be one. |
A table friend is changeable. |
Short reckonings make long friends. |
The villain that becomes rich knows neither friends nor family. |
There is something in the misfortune of our best friends which does not displease us. |
Kindred without friends, friends without power, power without will, will without effect, effect without profit, profit without virtue, is not worth a rush. |
French Proverbs about God |
God knows who is a good pilgrim. |
God save me from those I trust in. |
God gives the cold according to the cloth. |
God helps three sorts of people: fools, children and drunkards. |
God's work is soon done. |
God puts a good root in the little pig's way. |
God and man think him a fool who brags of his of his own great wisdom. |
God is on the side of the strongest battalions. |
God visits us often, but most of the time we are not home. |
God visits us, but most of the time we are not at home. |
God alone understands fools. |
God heals, and the physician takes the fee. |
God made hands before knives. |
God save you from a man who has but one business. |
French Proverbs List |
| Everything must have a beginning. French Proverbs |
It is always well to keep hold of your horse's bridle. French Proverbs |
He is a horse with four white feet. |
A cake and a bad custom ought to be broken. |
Hares are not caught by the sound of the drum. |
The wolf knows what the ill beats thinks. |
A peg for every hole. |
Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume. |
Do not lend your money to a great man. |
What you lose in the fire, you will find amongst the ashes. |
No fine clothes can hide the clown. |
Justifying a fault doubles it. |
The eye of the master fattens the steed. |
A thing too much seen is little prized. |
Flying birds have no master. |
He looks one way and rows another. |
What the she -wolf does pleases the he-wolf. |
A healthy woman is a successful woman. |
The early bird catcheth the worm. |
Every one his own, is but fair. |
Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you are. |
A good dog never gets a good bone. |
Deceit always returns to its master. |
Ask my comrade, who is as great a liar as myself. |
Every medal has its reverse. |
What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight. |
It is the tone that makes the music. |
The doctor is often more to be feared than the disease. |
For a stubborn ass a stubborn driver. |
A foolish judge passes brief sentence. |
He is like the gardener's dog, who don't eat cabbage and will let no one else eat them. |
The first step binds one to the second. |
What comes from the fife goes back to the drum. |
No more teachers, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks. |
A man who wants to drown his dog says he is mad. |
Every art requires the open person. |
Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye. |
A baby is an angel whose wings decrease as his legs increase. |
Let every one mind his own business, and the cows will be well tended. |
Take down a rogue from the gallows and he will hang you up. |
No one is so liberal as he who has nothing to give. |
The devil rebukes sin. |
He that corrects not youth, controls not age. |
Every road leads to Rome. |
Well knows the cats whose ear she licks. |
The fool's mother is always pregnant. |
A good head does not want for hats. |
He is a thief indeed who robs a thief. |
A blind hen can sometimes find her corn. |
It is a stupid goose that listens to the fox preach. |
When a man's friend marries, all is over between them. |
Light burdens borne far become heavy. |
Courtesy that is all on one side cannot last long. |
Naught must disturb a man of worth at dinner. |
The friends of our friends are our friends. |
Anger is a bad adviser. |
No wind can do him good who steers for no port. |
It is only good bargains that ruin. |
We must have reasons for speech but we need none for silence. |
Believe that, and drink some water. |
He'll laugh well that laughs longest. |
The days follow each other and are not alike. |
A good beast heats with eating. |
For one pleasure a thousand pains. |
The gown does not make the monk. |
Do you want better bread than wheaten? |
Hunger drives the wolf out of the wood. |
A covetous woman deserves a swindling gallant. |
War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military. |
Not every thunderclap is followed by lightning. |
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. |
By night all cats are grey. |
A landmark is very well placed between the fields of two brothers. |
Not every sort of wood is fit to make an arrow. |
He has enough who is content. |
It is in vain for a man to rise early who has the repute of lying in bed all the morning. |
Vanity has no greater foe than vanity. |
The greatest cunning is to have none at all. |
Everyone according to their talent and every talent according to its work. |
The chicken sings what the cock teaches him. |
When the daughter dies, the son-in-law is dead as well. |
Penny wise is often pound foolish. |
After rain fine weather. |
He who takes a wife takes a master. |
Upbraiding makes a benefit an injury. |
Fortune can take from us only what she has given us. |
People who have bread to eat do not appreciate the severity of a famine. |
The hunchback does not see his own hump, but he sees his brother's. |
When the kitchenmaids are together the roast burns. |
He that laughs on Friday may cry on Sunday. |
The bird ought not to soil its own nest. |
Better to be envied than pitied. |
Nothing is done while something remains undone. |
People will ignore their misfortunes and their interests when they are in competition with their pleasures. |
Gratitude is the heart's memory. |
| A dead mouse feels no cold. |
Two sparrows upon one ear of corn make ill agreement. |
Mistrust is the mother of certainty. |
Don't run too far, you will have to return the same distance. |
Everybody has a hump when he stoops. |
When you are well off keep as you are. |
The last drop makes the cup run over. |
Loaning money causes loss of memory. |
Paris wasn't made in a day. |
Too much scratching smarts, too much talking harms. |
Between the hand and the mouth the soup is often spilt. |
He who recovers but the tail of his cow does not lose all. |
The best thing about a man is his dog. |
A restive morsel needs a spur of wine. |
Where the hedge is lowest men jump over. |
Possession is nine points of the law. |
Contrivance is better than force. |
Make yourself a sheep and the wolf will eat you. |
The list is worse than the cloth. |
Nothing is more like an honest man than a rogue. |
To squeeze an eel too hard is the way to lose it. |
A handsome hostess is bad for the purse. |
Out of yes and no comes all dispute. |
He forgot nothing except to say farewell. |
The maxims of men disclose their hearts. |
Where wine appears the doctor disappears. |
The benefice must be taken with its liabilities. |
Foxes come at last to the furrier's. |
Look not a gift horse in the mouth. |
Misfortune comes on horseback and goes away on foot. |
Trickery comes back to its master. |
Prices are forgotten, quality remains. |
He that that hath a head of wax must not approach the fire. |
Better alone than in bad company. |
To leave a place is to die a little. |
Beauty without virtue is as a flower without perfume. |
Who cares well for cats will marry as happily as he or she could ever wish. |
Good wine makes the horse go. |
A fool is always beginning. |
The balance in doing its office knows neither gold nor lead. |
His like Jean de Nivelle's dog, that runs away when he is called. |
Out of sight out of mind. |
Everything in time comes to him who knows how to wait. |
The monk responds to the abbot's chants. |
Nothing so bold as a miller's shirt. |
Punctuality is the politeness of princes. |
Money is a good servant but a had master. |
Who hears but one bell hears but one sound. |
To do like the monkey, get the chesnuts out of the fire with the cat's paw. |
Incense intoxicates and every one wishes for it. |
A gilt bridle for an old mule. |
The absent are always in the wrong. |
Choosy pigs never get fat. |
Men count up the faults of those who keep them waiting. |
Who lends to a friend loses doubly. |
A woman who looks much in the glass spins but little. |
The most cunning are the first caught. |
From word to deed is a great space. |
Those who shine in the second rank, are eclipsed by the first. |
One never gets more than one's money's worth of anything. |
Quarrels do not last long if the wrong is only on one side. |
One scabby sheep is enough to spoil the whole flock. |
Tell me whom you frequent, and I will tell you who you are. |
Who proves too much proves nothing. |
| A hundred years is not much, but never is a long while. |
Good comes to better, and better to bad. |
Better die a beggar than live as a miser. |
Who wishes to travel far spares his steed. |
He that would keep his house clean must not let priest or pigeon into it. |
The nimblest footman is a false tale. |
Nothing venture, nothing gain. |
Who sows thorns let him not walk bare-foot. |
Dread the anger of the dove. |
Marry in haste and repent at leisure. |
He that leaves certainty and sticks to chance, When fools pipe he may dance. |
There's nothing like being bespattered for making a man defy the gutter. |
Great thieves hang little thieves. |
One must be either anvil or hammer. |
Authority has no partner. |
Hunger is the best sauce. |
The person who has no opinion will seldom be wrong. |
Starlings are skinny because they fly in a group. |
Whores and thieves are always very pious. |
Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. |
| Money is round, it must roll. |
In a good family the husband is deaf and the wife blind. |
Rich garments weep on unworthy shoulders. French Sayings |
Youth must be served. |
Fair is he that comes, but fairer he that brings. |
He who judges between two friends loses one of them. |
Man is preceded by forest and followed by desert. |
There is no worse water than that which sleeps. |
Muddied water does not reflect. |
All the treasures of earth cannot bring back one lost moment. |
Why keep a dog and bark yourself? |
Spare to speak and spare to speed. |
Fair feathers make fair fowls. |
He does a good day's work who rids himself of a fool. |
Give out that you have many friends, and believe that you have but few. |
The rich man has more relations than he knows about. |
I know on which side my bread is buttered. |
Youth may stray afar yet return at last. |
A living dog is better than a dead lion. * |
Sadness and gladness succeed each other. |
He who cannot speak well of his trade does not understand it. |
Bad news has wings. |
Wine will not keep in a foul vessel. |
A small fire that warms you is better than a large one that burns you. |
He who hold the thread holds the ball. |
Enough is better than too much. |
Some think they have done when they are only beginning. |
The second blow makes the fray. |
Many enter the wood without an axe. |
One man alone is prey to the wolf. |
There is no bush so small but casts its shadow. |
| A cake eaten in peace, is worth two in trouble. |
You sell more herrings on the market than sole. |
See a pin and let it lie, you'll want a pin before you die. |
Build a golden bridge for the fleeing enemy. |
Half the truth is often a whole lie. |
Like master, like man. |
A good advice is as good as an eye in the hand. |
Fat pastures make fat venison. |
If the doctor cures the sun sees it, but if he kills the earth hides it. |
That day is lost on which one has not laughed. |
There are more foolish buyers than foolish sellers. |
You often meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. |
Set hard heart against hard hap. |
An easy shepherd makes the wolf void wool. |
One candle for St. Michael, and another for his devil. |
It is good to dance on another man's floor. |
It is the old cow's notion that she never was a calf. - French Sayings |
Quick Links