No man is always wise except a fool. [ Proverb ]

Except wind stands as it never stood
It is an ill wind turns none to good. [ Thomas Tusser ]

Thought will not work except in silence. [ Carlyle ]

Necessity knows no law except to conquer. [ Publius Syrus ]

Nothing can work me damage except myself. [ St. Bernard ]

I can resist everything except temptation. [ Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan ]

God is everywhere except where his vicar is. [ German Proverb ]

There is nothing new except what is forgotten. [ Mademoiselle Bertin ]

You begin well in nothing, except you end well. [ Proverb ]

A miser does nothing right except when he dies. [ Proverb ]

This world is nothing except it tend to another. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Here lies Dame Dorothy Peg,
Who never had issue except in her leg,
So great was her art, so deep was her cunning,
That while one leg stood, the other kept running. [ Epitaph ]

Count not four, except you have them in a wallet. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

All kinds are good except the kind that bores you. [ Voltaire ]

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. [ Samuel Johnson ]

Gold has wings which carry everywhere except to heaven. [ Rus. Proverb ]

Every ship is a romantic object except that we sail in. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

I have never advocated war, except as a means of peace. [ U. S. Grant ]

Great eloquence we cannot get, except from human genius. [ Thomas Starr King ]

There is nothing at all in life except what we put there. [ Mme. Swetchine ]

No rest is worth anything except the rest that is earned. [ Jean Paul ]

Modern women understand everything except their husbands. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]

The fool thinks nothing well done except what he does himself.

Nobody should ever look anxious except those who have no anxiety. [ Beaconsfield ]

What is failure except feebleness?
And what is it to miss one's mark except to aim widely and weakly? [ Ouida ]

What is life except the knitting up of incoherences into coherence? [ Carlyle ]

Is any man free except the one who can pass his life as he pleases? [ Persius ]

The first step to self-knowledge is self-distrust
Nor can we attain to any kind of knowledge, except by a like process. [ J. C and A. W. Hare ]

We think very few people sensible except those who are of our opinion. [ Rochefoucauld ]

The world is all perfect except where man comes with his burden of woe. [ Friedrich Schiller ]

Leisure is seldom enjoyed with perfect satisfaction except in solitude. [ Zimmermann ]

Except pain of body and remorse of conscience, all our evils are imaginary. [ Rousseau ]

There is no finite life except unto death; no death except unto higher life. [ Bunsen ]

God never makes us sensible of our weakness except to give us of His strength. [ Fenelon ]

Hunger makes everything sweet except itself, for want is the teacher of habits. [ Antiphanes ]

Except in obedience to the heaven-chosen is freedom not so much as conceivable. [ Carlyle ]

In the great inconstancy and crowd of events nothing is certain except the past. [ Seneca ]

No man can be good, or great, or happy, except through inward efforts of his own. [ F. W. Robertson ]

Everything in the world may be endured, except only a succession of prosperous days. [ Goethe ]

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. [ Leonard Nimoy, Tweeted Feb. 22, 2015, five days before his death ]

When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]

One can survive everything except Death, and live down everything except a good reputation. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]

Aphorisms, except they be ridiculous, cannot be made but of the pith and heart of sciences. [ Lord Bacon ]

Women have become so highly educated that nothing should surprise them except happy marriages. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]

Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised except by those to whom it has been refused. [ Gibbon ]

When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power. [ Mme. de Stael ]

Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit. [ Bacon ]

The devil never assails a man except he finds him either void of knowledge or of the fear of God. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

No true and permanent fame can be founded, except in labors which promote the happiness of mankind. [ Charles Sumner ]

True goodness is like the glow-worm; it shines most when no eyes, except those of heaven are upon it. [ Anonymous ]

Every form of freedom is hurtful, except that which delivers us over to perfect command of ourselves. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

It is one of the worst of errors to suppose that there is any other path of safety except that of duty. [ Aughey ]

Except in knowing what it has to do and how to do it, the soul cannot resolve the riddle of its destiny. [ Ed ]

Bores are not to be got rid of except by rough means. They are to be scraped off like scales from a fish. [ Bovee ]

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]

Beauty has no lustre except when it gleams through the crystal web that purity's fine fingers weave for it. [ Maturin ]

People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors. [ George Eliot ]

The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear. [ Goethe ]

True goodness is like the glow-worm in this, that it shines most when no eyes except those of heaven are upon it. [ J. C. Hare ]

We seldom find persons whom we acknowledge to be possessed of good sense, except those who agree with us in opinion. [ Rochefoucauld ]

I regard them, as Charles the Emperor did Florence, that they are too pleasant to be looked upon except on holidays. [ Izaak Walton ]

The hair is the finest ornament women have. Of old, virgins used to wear it loose, except when they were in mourning. [ Luther ]

Never write except when you have something to say, and then say it simply - as Addison, Goldsmith, and Franklin wrote. [ Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Art Of Authorship, 1891 ]

Why go I into details? we have nothing that is not perishable, except what our hearts and our intellects endow us with. [ Ovid ]

No idea can succeed except at the expense of sacrifices; no one ever escapes without a stain from the struggle of life. [ Renan ]

What have the Germans gained by their boasted freedom of the press, except the liberty of abusing each other as they like? [ Goethe ]

Bees will not work except in darkness; thought will not work except in silence; neither will virtue work except in secrecy. [ Carlyle ]

Duty speaks with the lawful authority of many voices; pleasure has no strength except in the longing desire of the hungry unit. [ Edith Simcox ]

Let us not disdain glory too much - nothing is finer except virtue. The height of happiness would be to unite both in this life. [ Chateaubriand ]

Houses are built to live in more than to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had. [ Bacon ]

Jesus wept once; possibly more than once. There are times when God asks nothing of His children except silence, patience, and tears. [ Charles S. Robinson ]

Nothing, or almost nothing, is certain to me, except the Divine Infernal character of this universe I live in, worthy of horror, worthy of worship. [ Carlyle ]

There be some that think their wits have been asleep, except they dart out somewhat that is piquant, and to the quick; that is a vein which would be bridled. [ Bacon ]

Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction. [ Colton ]

We should manage our fortune as we do our health - enjoy it when good, be patient when it is bad, and never apply violent remedies except in an extreme necessity. [ La Rochefoucauld ]

High birth is a thing which I never knew any one to disparage except those who had it not; and I never knew any one to make a boast of it who had anything else to be proud of. [ Bishop Warburton ]

No one loves to tell of scandal except to him who loves to hear it. Learn, then, to rebuke and check the detracting tongue by showing that you do not listen to it with pleasure. [ St. Jerome ]

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. [ Bacon ]

Everything made by man may be destroyed by man; there are no ineffaceable characters except those engraved by nature; and nature makes neither princes nor rich men nor great lords. [ Rousseau ]

Your estate, your home, and your pleasing wife must be left, and of these trees which you are rearing, not one shall follow you, their short-lived owner, except the hateful cypresses. [ Horace ]

Nothing makes so much impression on the heart of man as the voice of friendship when it is really known to be such; for we are aware that it never speaks to us except for our advantage. [ Rousseau ]

We may deserve grief; but why should women be unhappy? - except that we know heaven chastens those whom it loves best, being pleased by repeated trials to make these pure spirits more pure. [ Thackeray ]

I fancy mankind may come in time to write all aphoristically, except in narration; grow weary of preparation and connection and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. [ Dr. Johnson ]

Friendship, in the old heroic sense of that term, no longer exists; except in the cases of kindred or other legal affinity, it is in reality no longer expected or recognised as a virtue among men. [ Carlyle ]

Men of the greatest genius are not always the most prodigal of their encomiums. But then it is when their range of power is confined, and they have in fact little perception, except of their own particular kind of excellence. [ Hazlitt ]

Secrets from other people's wives are a necessary luxury in modern life, but no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]

I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; and I was always tired. But let another person try my way, and see where he will come out. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]

An era is fast approaching when no writer will be rend by the majority, save and except those than can effect that for bales of manuscript that the hydrostatic screw performs for bales of cotton, by condensing that matter into a period that before occupied a page. [ Cottar ]

Socrates was pronounced by the oracle of Delphos to be the wisest man in Greece, which he would turn from himself ironically, saying there could be nothing in him to verify the oracle, except this, that he was not wise and knew it, and others were not wise and knew it not. [ Bacon ]

Love to make others happy; yes, surely at all times, so far as you can. But at bottom that is not the aim of any life. Do not think that your life means a mere searching in gutters for fallen creatures to wipe and set up.... In our life there is no meaning at all except the work we have done. [ Carlyle ]

He that abuses his own profession will not patiently bear with any one else who does so. And this is one of our most subtle operations of self-love. For when we abuse our own profession, we tacitly except ourselves; but when another abuses it, we are far from being certain that this is the case. [ Colton ]

We are not fond of praising, and never praise any one except from interested motives. Praise is a clever, concealed, and delicate flattery, which gratifies in different ways the giver and the receiver. The one takes it as a recompense of his merit, and the other bestows it to display his equity and discernment. [ Rochefoucauld ]

Wherein is it possible for us, wicked and impious creatures, to be justified, except in the only Son of God? O sweet reconciliation! O untraceable ministry! O unlooked-for blessing! that the wickedness of many should be hidden in one godly and righteous man, and the righteousness of one justify a host of sinners! [ Justin Martyr ]

Talk, except as the preparation for work, is worth almost nothing; sometimes it is worth infinitely less than nothing; and becomes, little conscious of playing such a fatal part, the general summary of pretentious nothingnesses, and the chief of all the curses the posterity of Adam are liable to in this sublunary world. [ Carlyle ]

Vulgar habit people have nowadays of asking one, after one has given them an idea, whether one is serious or not. Nothing is serious except passion. The intellect is an instrument on which one plays, that is all. The only serious form of intellect is the British intellect. And on the British form of intellect the illiterates play the drum. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]

Metaphysicians have been learning their lessons for the last four thousand years, and it is high time that they should now begin to teach us something. Can any of the tribe inform us why all the operations of the mind are carried on with undiminished strength and activity in dreams, except the judgment, which alone is suspended and dormant? [ Colton ]

By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages. [ Hazlitt ]

People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor. [ Goethe ]

It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat; and worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them, - for every one sees how we dress, but none see how we live, except we choose to let them. But the truly great are, by universal suffrage, exempted from these trammels, and may live or dress as they please. [ Colton ]

Poetical taste is the only magician whose wand is not broken. No hand, except its own, can dissolve the fabric of beauty in which it dwells. Genii, unknown to Arabian fable, wait at the portal. Whatever is most precious from the loom or the mine of fancy is poured at its feet. Love, purified by contemplation, visits and cheers it; unseen musicians are heard in the dark; it is Psyche in the palace of Cupid. [ Willmott ]

Mr. Johnson had never, by his own account, been a close student, and used to advise young people never to be without a book in their pocket, to be read at bye-times, when they had nothing else to do. It has been by that means, said he to a boy at our house one day, that all my knowledge has been gained, except what I have picked up by running about the world with my wits ready to observe, and my tongue ready to talk. [ Mrs. Piozzi ]

You can throw yourselves away. You can become of no use in the universe except for a warning. You can lose your souls. Oh, what a loss is that! The perversion and degradation of every high and immortal power for an eternity! And shall this be true of any one of you? Will you be lost when One has come from heaven, traveling in the greatness of His strength, and with garments dyed in blood, on purpose to guide you home - home to a Father's house - to an eternal home? [ Mark Hopkins ]

The importance of the romantic element does not rest upon conjecture. Pleasing testimonies abound. Hannah More traced her earliest impressions of virtue to works of fiction; and Adam Clarke gives a list of tales that won his boyish admiration. Books of entertainment led him to believe in a spiritual world; and he felt sure of having been a coward, but for romances. He declared that he had learned more of his duty to God, his neighbor and himself from Robinson Crusoe than from all the books, except the Bible, that were known to his youth. [ Willmott ]