`` get a bite, spit on it '' was a proverb.

In early English literature the short couplet poem was dominated by the poetic epigram and proverb, especially in the translations of the Bible and the Greek and Roman poets.

: Suetonius wrote "... for even if he was not the instigator of the emperor's death, he was at least privy to it, as he openly admitted ; for he used afterwards to laud mushrooms, the vehicle in which the poison was administered to Claudius, as " the food of the gods ," as the Greek proverb has it.

Because proverbs are so much a part of the language and culture, authors have sometimes used proverbs in historical fiction effectively, but anachronistically, before the proverb was actually known.

This is doubly interesting since the underlying proverb behind this, " One picture is worth a thousand words ," was originally introduced into the English proverb repertoire in an ad for televisions ( Mieder 2004b: 83 ).

The phrase Saul is among the prophets, is mentioned by the text in a way that suggests it was a proverb in later Israelite culture.

Although the breed did not apparently experience any significant change in the 18th and 19th centuries, and was kept in its vocation as a swift hunting dog, maybe the most telling proverb which mentions the Galgo, is the one dating from the first years of the nineteenth Century:

Early in 1940, he was trained for a commission after, whilst working in a kitchen, answering the question of an inspecting brigadier with a Greek proverb ; on several occasions, he told colleagues that he expected to be at least a major-general by the end of the war.

The taro ( saonjo in Malagasy ) is, according to an old Malagasy proverb, " the elder of the rice " ( Ny saonjo no zokin ' ny vary ), and was also a staple diet for all the ancient Austronesians

In 1935 it was suggested that the title derived from a line in John Florio's His firste Fruites ( 1578 ), " We neede not speak so much of loue, al books are ful of lou, with so many authours, that it were labour lost to speake of Loue ", a source from which Shakespeare also took the untranslated Venetian proverb Venetia, Venetia / Chi non ti vede non ti pretia

Another proverb associated with Ibycus was recorded by Diogenianus: " more antiquated than Ibycus " or " more silly than Ibycus ".

The proverb was apparently based on an anecdote about Ibycus stupidly or nobly turning down an opportunity to become tyrant of Rhegium in order to pursue a poetic career instead ( one modern scholar however infers from his poetry that Ibycus was in fact wise enough to avoid the lure of supreme power, citing as an example Plato's quotation from one of his lyrics: " I am afraid it may be in exchange for some sin before the gods that I get honour from men ") There is no other information about Ibycus ' activities in the West, apart from an account by Himerius, that he fell from his chariot while travelling between Catana and Himera and injured his hand badly enough to give up playing the lyre " for some considerable time.

Roosevelt attributed the term as " a West African proverb ", and was seen at the time as evidence of Roosevelt ’ s " prolific " reading habits.

However, it is also rumored that Roosevelt himself first made the phrase publicly known, and that he meant it was West African proverb only metaphorically.

According to Strabo, Smyrna was named after an Amazon and, according to a manuscript on proverbs, Mimnermus once composed on the theme of the proverb " A lame man makes the best lover ", illustrating the Amazonian practice of maiming their men.

Other forms of memory test might require contestants to remember a phrase or proverb and answer a series of questions about it ( e. g. " What was the fifth letter of the fourth word?

In ancient times, Hyrcania was infested with panthers and tigers, so fierce and cruel, as to give rise to a proverb concerning fierce and unrelenting men, that they had sucked Hyrcanian tigers.

In September, Park was summoned to London to leave on the new expedition ; he left Scott with the hopeful proverb on his lips, " Freits ( omens ) follow those that look to them.

Deriving from the Middle Ages, this proverb ( which was, and to a certain extent still is, rendered as " Talk of the Devil ...") was a superstitious prohibition against speaking directly of the Devil or of evil in general, which was considered to incite that party to appear, generally with unfortunate consequences.

( The plural " friends " still but rarely may be used for " kinsfolk ", as in the Scottish proverb Friends agree best at a distance, quoted in 1721.

However, the proverb about changing horses in midstream is reliably dated to 1864, so the proverb could not have been known or used by a character from that period.

Some authors have used so many proverbs that there have been entire books written cataloging their proverb usage, such as Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, and George Bernard Shaw.

The band Fleet Foxes used the proverb painting Netherlandish Proverbs for the cover of their eponymous album Fleet Foxes.

The proverb Feast or famine has been used as an album title by Chuck Ragan, Reef the Lost Cauze, Indiginus, and DaVinci.

The band Downcount used a proverb for the name of their tour, Come and take it.

For example, proverbs have been used for teaching foreign languages at various levels., In addition, proverbs have been used for public health promotion, such as promoting breast feeding with a shawl bearing a Swahili proverb “ Mother ’ s milk is sweet ”, also for helping people manage diabetes, for to combat prostitution, and for community development The most active field deliberately using proverbs is Christian ministry, where Joseph G. Healey and others have deliberately worked to catalyze the collection of proverbs from smaller languages and the application of them in a wide variety of church-related ministries, resulting in publications of collections and applications ,.

Though much proverb scholarship is done by literary scholars, those studying the human mind have used proverbs in a variety of studies.

::: When confronted with a choice between something certain and something uncertain, this Spanish proverb is used to gravitate towards the first.

Local fish, such as mullets, bream, sea urchins, and anchovies ( alevins ) are used to a great extent, so much so that it has given birth to a proverb: " fish are born in the sea and die in oil ".

The proverb yǒu yuán wú fèn ( 有緣無份 ), " Have fate without destiny ," is sometimes used to describe couples who meet, but who do not for whatever reason stay together.

A Cornish proverb, recounted in 1861, emphasised the great variety of ingredients that were used in pasties by saying that the devil would not come into Cornwall for fear of ending up as a filling in one.

Jacob Jordaens had often used proverbs in his paintings, using the characters in the portrait to play out the meaning of the proverb ( usually a warning of sorts ).

At least until the 5th century BC ( Pindar's time ) the winners of the Isthmian games received a wreath of celery ; later, the wreath was altered such that it consisted of pine leaves .< ref >“ As he was marching up an ascent, from the top of which they expected to have a view of the army and of the strength of the enemy, there met him by chance a train of mules loaded with parsley ; which his soldiers conceived to be an ominous occurrence or ill-boding token, because this is the herb with which we not infrequently adorn the sepulchres of the dead ; and there is a proverb derived from the custom, used of one who is dangerously sick, that he has need of nothing but parsley.

There is a Hungarian proverb still used today saying Matthias has died, justice is gone ( Meghalt Mátyás, oda az igazság ).

The phrase is still used commonly as a proverb in German-speaking countries.

The proverb is used to portray when someone who is seemingly unfit for a job is forced, yet willing to face what seems to be insurmountable odds against them.

A comedy was performed at the Elizabethan court in 1567-8 with the title Jack and Jill and the phrase was used twice by Shakespeare: in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which contains the line: " Jack shall have Jill ; Nought shall go ill " ( III: ii: 460-2 ) and in Love's Labour's Lost, which has the lines: " Our wooing doth not end like an old play ; Jack hath not Jill " ( V: ii: 874 – 5 ), suggesting that it was a phase that indicated a romantically attached couple, as in the proverb " A good Jack makes a good Jill ".

As opposed to the Centre Party's Eigen volk eerst (" Our People First "), the Centre Democrats ' manifesto used the Dutch proverb Oost West Thuis Best (" East, West, Home Best ").

There is a proverb of the hierarchy of ceramic styles used for tea ceremony: ' First, Raku (- yaki ).

The term has also been used to describe a garden path sentence based on a proverb ; namely, a sentence that starts out like the proverb, but ends in such a way that the listener is forced to back up and re-parse several words in order to get its real sense:

The proverb " pride goes before a fall " ( from the biblical Book of Proverbs, 16: 18 ) is thought to summate the modern use of hubris.