As crooked as Crawley brook. [ Proverb ]
A crooked log makes a good fire. [ French Proverb ]
Strait trees have crooked roots. [ Proverb ]
A crooked log makes a straight fire. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A straight stick is crooked in the water. [ Proverb ]
A crooked stick will have a crooked shadow. [ Proverb ]
The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy, we keep the road
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells. [ Cowper ]
Crooked by nature is never made straight by education.. [ Proverb ]
If the staff be crooked, the shadow cannot be straight. [ Anonymous ]
Many make straight things crooked, but few the contrary. [ Proverb ]
He that scoffs at the crooked had need go very upright himself. [ Proverb ]
Men that make envy and crooked malice nourishment, dare bite the best. [ William Shakespeare ]
The drop hollows the stone, the ring is worn by use, and the crooked ploughshare is frayed away by the pressure of the earth. [ Ovid ]
The more weakness the more falsehood; strength goes straight; every cannon-ball that has in it hollows and holes goes crooked; weaklings must lie. [ Richter ]
Venerable to me is the hard hand, - crooked, coarse, - wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indispensably royal as of the sceptre of the planet. [ Carlyle ]
The passage of Providence lies through many crooked ways; a despairing heart is the true prophet of approaching evil; his actions may weave the webs of fortune, but not break them. [ Quarles ]
Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil; In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish; For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth. [ Tupper ]
If a crooked stick is before you, you need not explain how crooked it is. Lay a straight one down by the side of it, and the work is well done. Preach the truth, and error will stand abashed in its presence. [ Spurgeon ]
Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked path looks straighter as we approach the end. [ Richter ]