He runs far who never turns. [ Italian Proverb ]
At length the fox turns monk. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Abused patience turns to fury. [ Proverb ]
Joy surfeited turns to sorrow. [ Proverb ]
Patience provoked turns to fury. [ Proverb ]
Fortune, that arrant whore,
Ne'er turns the key to the poor. [ William Shakespeare ]
Wine turns a man inside outwards. [ Proverb ]
Can by their pangs and aches find
All turns and changes of the wind. [ Butler ]
It is a long lane that never turns. [ Proverb ]
Steady work turns genius to a loom. [ George Eliot ]
Remorse turns us against ourselves. [ Chamfort ]
One never loses by doing good turns. [ Proverb ]
Except wind stands as it never stood
It is an ill wind turns none to good. [ Thomas Tusser ]
Mercy turns her back to the unmerciful. [ Quarles ]
Strike, brave boys, and take your turns. [ William Shakespeare ]
From a closed door the devil turns away. [ Portuguese Proverb ]
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal,
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest. [ William Shakespeare ]
Nations and empires flourish and decay,
By turns command, and in their turn obey. [ Dryden, after Ovid ]
Whilst it thunders the thief turns honest. [ Proverb ]
A wise man turns chance into good fortune. [ Proverb ]
The tongue ever turns to the aching tooth. [ Proverb ]
When dinner has oppress'd one,
I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour
Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four. [ Byron ]
Upbraiding turns a benefit into an injury. [ Proverb ]
A married man turns his staff into a stake. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home
Hies merry-hearted; and by turns relieves
The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail;
The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart.
Unknowing what the joy-mixed anguish means,
Sincerely loves, by that best language shown
Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. [ Thomson ]
Good unexpected, evil unforeseen,
Appear by turns, as fortune shifts the scene;
Some rais'd aloft, come tumbling down amain
And fall so hard, they bound and rise again. [ Lord Lansdowne ]
We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile -
The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry. [ Young ]
Fortune confounds the wise.
And when they least expect it turns the dice. [ Dryden ]
Where, where for shelter shall the guilty fly
When consternation turns the good man pale? [ Young ]
The eastern gate, all fiery red,
Opening on Neptune, with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams. [ William Shakespeare ]
Unhappy he! who from the first of joys.
Society, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after day.
Sad on the jutting eminence he sits,
And views the main that ever toils below;
Still fondly forming in the farthest verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave.
Ships, dim-discovered, dropping from the clouds;
At evening, to the setting sun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helpless. [ Thomson ]
Pride in prosperity turns to misery in adversity. [ Proverb ]
Her years
Were ripe, they might make six-and-twenty springs;
But there are forms which Time to touch forbears,
And turns aside his scythe to vulgar things. [ Byron ]
Care, admitted as guest, quickly turns to be master. [ Bovee ]
These wickets of the soul are placed so high,
Because all sounds do highly move aloft;
And that they may not pierce too violently,
They are delay'd with turns and twinings oft.
For should the voice directly strike the brain,
It would astonish and confuse it much;
Therefore these plaits and folds the sound restrain,
That it the organ may more gently touch. [ Sir John Davies ]
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name. [ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream ]
Haste turns usually on a matter of ten minutes too late. [ Bovee ]
Now cold despair To livid paleness turns the glowing red;
His blood, scarce liquid, creeps within his veins,
Like water which the freezing wind constrains. [ Dryden ]
Anger turns the mind out of doors, and bolts the entrance. [ Plutarch ]
The poor man turns his cake, and another comes and eats it. [ Proverb ]
Fortune turns everything to the advantage of her favorites. [ Rochefoucauld ]
In extreme danger, fear turns a deaf ear to every feeling of pity. [ Caesar ]
Then sing by turns, by turns the Muses sing; Now hawthorns blossom. [ Pope ]
Diligence is the philosopher's stone, that turns everything to gold. [ N. Webster ]
A strange ox every now and then turns its eyes wistfully to the door. [ Proverb ]
Drunkenness turns a man out of himself, and leaves a beast in his room. [ Proverb ]
Content is the philosopher's stone, that turns all it touches into gold. [ Proverb ]
Sorrow turns the stars into mourners, and every wind of heaven into a dirge. [ Hannay ]
Man's caution often into danger turns, and his guard falling crushes him to death. [ Young ]
Women grown bad are worse than men, because the corruption of the best turns worst. [ Proverb ]
Where'er I roam, whatever realm to see, my heart, untravelled, fondly turns to thee. [ Goldsmith ]
One drop of hatred left in the cup of joy turns the most blissful draught into poison. [ Friedrich Schiller ]
Wine often turns the good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. [ Addison ]
There is a truth and beauty in rhetoric; but it oftener serves ill turns than good ones. [ W. Penn ]
Show a good man his error, and he turns it to a virtue; but an ill, it doubles his fault. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
That happiness does still the longest thrive where joys and griefs have turns alternative. [ Robert Herrick ]
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train, swells at my heart, and turns the past to pain. [ Goldsmith ]
As surfeit is the father of much fast, so every scope by the immoderate use turns to restraint. [ William Shakespeare ]
As the best wine makes the sharpest vinegar, so the deepest love turns to the deadliest hatred. [ Proverb ]
I have discovered the philosopher's stone that turns everything into gold; it is, Pay as you go.
[ Randolph ]
The wheel of fortune turns incessantly round, and who can say within himself, I shall today be uppermost? [ Confucius ]
He who climbs above the cares of this world and turns his face to his God, has found the sunny side of life. [ Spurgeon ]
Extreme views are never just; something always turns up which disturbs the calculations formed upon their data. [ Beaconsfield ]
Simplicity is in the intention, purity in the affection; simplicity turns to God, purity unites with and enjoys him. [ Thomas à Kempis ]
Every man turns his dreams into realities as far as he can. Man is cold as ice to the truth, but as fire to falsehood. [ La Fontaine ]
Every one turns his dreams into realities as far as he can; man is cold as ice to the truth, hot as fire to falsehood. [ La Fontaine ]
Fate with impartial hand turns out the doom of high and low: her capacious urn is constantly shaking the names of all mankind. [ Horace ]
The bad fortune of the good, turns their faces up to heaven; and the good fortune of the bad, bows their heads down to the earth. [ Sadi ]
No man can live happily who regards himself alone, who turns everything to his own advantage. Thou must live for another, if thou wishest to live for thyself. [ Seneca ]
Those who are incapable of shining out by dress would do well to consider that the contrast between them and their clothes turns out much to their disadvantage. [ Shenstone ]
Thou mayest as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading. Too much overcharges nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. [ Fuller ]
O jealousy, thou ugliest fiend of hell! thy deadly venom preys on my vitals, turns the healthful hue of my fresh cheek to haggard sallowness, and drinks my spirit up. [ Hannah More ]
Haste turns usually upon a matter of ten minutes too late, and may be avoided by a habit like that of Lord Nelson, to which he ascribed his success in life, of being ten minutes too early. [ Bovee ]
The human heart is like a millstone in a mill: when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds and bruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat, it still grinds on, but then 'tis itself it grinds and wears away. [ Martin Luther ]
Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head. [ Charron ]
The human heart is like a millstone in a mill; when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds, and bruises the wheat into flour; if you put no wheat in it, it still grinds on; but then it is itself it grinds, and slowly wears away. [ M. Luther ]
Small miseries, like small debts, hit us in so many places and meet us at so many turns and corners, that what they want in weight they make up in number, and render it less hazardous to stand one cannon ball than a volley of bullets. [ Colton ]
The reasonable worship of a just God who punishes and rewards, would undoubtedly contribute to the happiness of men; but when that salutary knowledge of a just God is disfigured by absurd lies and dangerous superstitions, then the remedy turns to poison. [ Voltaire ]
How often a new affection makes a new man! The sordid, cowering soul turns heroic. The frivolous girl becomes the steadfast martyr of patience and ministration, transfigured by deathless love. The career of bounding impulses turns into an anthem of sacred deeds. [ Chapin ]
In the hour of distress and misery, the eye of every mortal turns to friendship; in the hour of gladness and conviviality, what is our want? It is friendship. When the heart overflows with gratitude, or with any other sweet and sacred sentiment, what is the word to which it would give utterance? My friend. [ W. S. Landor ]
Luck is ever waiting for something to turn up. Labor, with keen eyes and strong will, will turn up something. Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him the news of a legacy. Labor turns out at six o'clock, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence. Luck whines. Labor whistles. Luck relies on chance. Labor on character. [ Cobden ]
When the first time of love is over, there comes a something better still; then comes that other love; that faithful friendship which never changes, and which will accompany you with its calm light through the whole of life; it is only needful to place yourself so that it may come, and then it comes of itself; and then everything turns and changes itself for the best. [ Frederika Bremer ]
A composition which dazzles at first sight by gaudy epithets, or brilliant turns of expression, or glittering trains of imagery, may fade gradually from the mind, leaving no enduring impression. Words which flow fresh and warm from a full heart, and which are instinct with the life and breath of human feeling, pass into household memories, and partake of the immortality of the affections from which they spring. [ Whipple ]
The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man's general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters turns upon one shilling. [ Chesterfield ]
Mutability is the badge of infirmity; it is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike; now he is for marrying, and now a mistress is preferred to a wife; now he is ambitious and aspiring, presently the meanest servant is not more humble than he; this hour he squanders his money away, the next he turns miser; sometimes he is frugal and serious, at other times profuse, airy, and gay. [ Charron ]
With whatever respect and admiration a child may regard a father, whose example has called forth his energies, and animated him in his various pursuits, he turns with greater affection and intenser love to a kind-hearted mother; the same emotion follows him through life; and when the changing vicissitudes of after years have removed his parents from him, seldom does the remembrance of his mother occur to his mind, unaccompanied by the most affectionate recollections. Show me a man, though his brow be furrowed, and his hair grey, who has forgotten his mother, and I shall suspect that something is going on wrong within him; either his memory is impaired, or a hard heart is beating in his bosom. [ Mogridge ]