Mexican Proverb of the Day: “The graveyards are full of the clean and the gluttonous” uses humour and striking imagery to ...

What really are proverbs, where do they come from, how are they disseminated and what function do they have in modern society? Those are questions that are often asked when people reflect on the ...

A crooked cornstalk can have a straight ear' explains how a person can have a difficult background and still develop good character and achieve success. The proverb asks people to look beyond ...

German Proverb of the Day: “Children and drunk people always tell the truth” explores the traditional belief that people with ...

On the surface, the idea is straightforward. Give someone a fish and they eat for a day. Give them a fishing rod and they can keep feeding themselves. The contrast is clear enough that you don’t ...

PROF Wolfgang Mieder (born 1944) is best known for his work on paremiology. Paroemias means proverbs and paremiology is the study of proverbs. Mieder says that the discussion as to what proverb is and ...

From old chestnuts like “no pain, no gain” to sports wisdom like “the best offence is a good defence”, there seems to be a proverb for everything. There’s good reason: proverbs touch on just about ...

A proverb is wisdom packed in a brief and crisp sentence. Born of words of the wise, a proverb not only proffers advice based on experience but it also reflects the linguistic, cultural and social ...