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Tweet Plus One Share Email Pin Every culture has a collection of wise sayings that offer advice about how to live your life. These sayings are called "proverbs". It's good to know the really common English proverbs because you hear them come up in conversation all the time. Sometimes people say the entire proverb to give advice to a friend. More often, someone will say just part of a proverb like this: You know what they say: when the going gets tough... (Read #5 below to learn the rest of this proverb and what it means.) Learning proverbs can also help you to understand the way that people in English-speaking cultures think about the world. This is a list of some of the most important and well-known English proverbs. Below each one, there's a simple explanation. Note that some of the meanings of these phrases have shifted over the years, so a proverb might have originally had a different meaning than the one I explain.
You can get better service if you complain about something. If you wait patiently, no one's going to help you.
with them. That way you can watch them carefully and figure out what they're planning.
43. "The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill."
People tend to want whatever they don't have.
44. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Don't do mean things to people.
48. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."
If you try to help someone, but they don't take your advice or offers, give up. You can't force someone to accept your help.
50. "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself."
Don't trust other people to do important things for you. You have to do things yourself to control the quality of the results.