James Howell Quotes

Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations.

A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom.

Listen carefully to what country people call mother wit. In those homely sayings are couched the collective wisdom of generations.

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.

What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes?

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer.

Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction.

Proverbs are potted wisdom.

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

I believe there's no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.

The wise make proverbs, and fools repeat them.

A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.

Proverbs may be said to be the abridgment of wisdom.

I got so tired of hearing those proverbs when I was a child. Now I use them all the time. Sometimes they are the best way to say what needs to be said. I teach them to my students. I have a collection of proverbs for class discussion and writing assignments.

Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

Proverbs are mental gems gathered in the diamond fields of the mind.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.

My mother is probably the wisest person I've ever known. She's not schooled, she's not well read. But she has a philosophy of life that makes well-read people seem like morons.

I collect axioms, paradoxes, maxims, teaching stories, proverbs, and aphorisms of all sorts, because I love to see complex ideas distilled into a few words.

I'd lived by quotations, practically all my life.

Proverbs contradict each other. That is the wisdom of a nation.