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| A man dishonoured is worse than dead. | 1 |
| Better a blush in the face than a blot in the heart. | 2 |
| Blessed be he who first invented sleep; it covers a man all over like a cloak. | 3 |
| Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall man. | 4 |
| Conceal not the meanness of thy family, nor think it disgraceful to be descended from peasants; for when it is seen thou art not thyself ashamed, no one will endeavour to make thee so. | 5 |
| Diligence is the mother of good fortune. | 6 |
| Don’t put too fine a point to your wit, for fear it should get blunted. | 7 |
| Dos linajes solo hay en el mundo, el “tener” y el “no tener”—There are but two families in the world, those who have, and those who have not. | 8 |
| Every one is as God made him, and often a great deal worse. | 9 |
| Falsehood is so much the more commendable, by how much more it resembles truth, and is the more pleasing the more it is doubtful and possible. | 10 |
| Fear has many eyes. | 11 |
| For the bow cannot possibly stand always bent, nor can human nature or human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation. | 12 |
| Forewarned, forearmed. | 13 |
| From great folks great favours are to be expected. | 14 |
| Gratitude which consists in good wishes may be said to be dead, as faith without good works is dead. | 15 |
| Happy the man to whom Heaven has given a morsel of bread without his being obliged to thank any other for it than Heaven itself. | 16 |
| He had a face like a benediction. | 17 |
| History is like sacred writing, for truth is essential to it. | 18 |
| In giants we must kill pride and arrogance; but our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within. | 19 |
| It is a fine thing to command, though it were but a herd of cattle. | 20 |
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| It is better for the man whom God helps than for him who rises early. | 21 |
| It is better to live on the crust of your own industry than on the fruits of other people’s. | 22 |
| It requires a long time to know any one. | 23 |
| Letters without virtue are like pearls in a dunghill. | 24 |
| Liberty is one of the most precious gifts that Heaven has bestowed on man, and captivity is the greatest evil that can befall him. | 25 |
| Luck is everything in promotion. | 26 |
| Necessity urges desperate measures. | 27 |
| Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last. | 28 |
| No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly. | 29 |
| No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden so well as her own reserve. | 30 |
| No slave, to lazy ease resign’d, / E’er triumphed over noble foes; / The monarch, Fortune, most is kind / To him who bravely dares oppose. | 31 |
| Nothing costs less or is cheaper than compliments of civility. | 32 |
| Nothing in itself deformed or incongruous can give us any real satisfaction. | 33 |
| Patience, and shuffle the cards. | 34 |
| Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience. | 35 |
| Riches are of little avail in many of the calamities to which mankind are liable. | 36 |
| Since we have a good loaf, let us not look for cheesecakes. | 37 |
| Sleep is the best cure for waking troubles. | 38 |
| Sloth never arrived at the attainment of a good wish. | 39 |
| Steward or deputy may do well: but the lord himself is obliged to stir in the administration of justice. | 40 |
| The army is a school in which the niggardly become generous and the generous prodigal. | 41 |
| The knowledge of thyself will preserve thee from vanity. | 42 |
| The mean of true valour lies between the extremes of cowardice and rashness. | 43 |
| The phœnix, Hope, can wing her flight / Through the vast deserts of the skies, / And still defying fortunes spite, / Revive and from her ashes rise. | 44 |
| The pleasure which strikes the soul must be derived from the beauty and congruity it sees or conceives in those things which the sight or imagination lay before it. | 45 |
| The reputation of a woman is as a crystal mirror, shining and bright, but liable to be sullied by every breath that comes near it. | 46 |
| There are always more tricks in a town than are talked of. | 47 |
| There are no proverbial sayings which are not true. | 48 |
| There is a remedy for everything but death. | 49 |
| To this burden women are born; they must obey their husbands, be they never such blockheads. | 50 |
| True valour lies in the middle between cowardice and rashness. | 51 |
| Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as oil does above water. | 52 |
| Unseasonable mirth always turns to sorrow. | 53 |
| We must not stand upon trifles. | 54 |
| Where there is music, nothing really bad can be. | 55 |
| Woman’s counsel is not worth much, yet he that despises it is no wiser than he should be. | 56 |
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