Jewish Proverbs
Sayings of Jewish Origin
Among those who stand, do not sit; among those who sit, do not stand.Pray that you will never have to bear all that you are able to endure.
Make sure to be in with your equals if you're going to fall out with your superiors.
Life is the biggest bargain. We get it for nothing.
Never kiss an ugly girl; she will tell everyone.
God couldn't be everywhere, so he created mothers.
He that can't endure the bad, will not live to see the good.
Don't make a mountain out of a molehill.
Where two Jews, three opinions.
Loose tongues are worse than wicked hands.
One mother achieves more than a hundred teachers.
Sympathy doesn't provide food, but it makes hunger more endurable.
When a habit begins to cost money, it's called a hobby.
What you give for the cause of charity in health is gold; what you give in sickness is silver; what you give after death is lead.
Don't be too sweet lest you be eaten up; don't be too bitter lest you be spewed out.
What the daughter does, the mother did.
Don't live in a town where there are no doctors.
A pessimist, confronted with two bad choices, chooses both.
Prepare your proof before you argue.
Whoever does not try, does not learn.
Who finds a faithful friend, finds a treasure.
Let your ears hear what your mouth says.
Pride joined with many virtues chokes them all.
Among those who laugh, do not weep; among those who weep, do not laugh.
If not for fear, sin would be sweet.
Don't pick a wasp out of a cream-jug.
What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.
Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.
Ask about your neighbors, then buy the house.
Don't make toil of pleasure.
If charity cost nothing, the world would be full of philanthropists.
Whoever enjoys his life is doing the Creator's will.
When two divorced people marry, four people get into bed.
God is closest to those with broken hearts.
Truth is the safest lie.
Don't look for more honor than your learning merits.
I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.
What one has, one doesn't want, and what one wants, one doesn't have.
Pride is the mask of one's own faults.
If you don't aspire to great things, you won't attain small things.
A half-truth is a whole lie.
When you open a door, don't forget to close it. Treat your mouth accordingly.
Taxes grow without rain.
Teach your tongue to say "I don't know" instead of to make up something.
Pride that dined with vanity supped with poverty.
One of life's greatest mysteries is how the boy who wasn't good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world.
Poverty is no shame -- but is no great honor either.
The poor fool is a man who falls on his back and breaks his nose.
Don't trust someone who tells you all of his troubles and keeps you from all of his joys.
What you don't see with your eyes, don't witness with your mouth.
With money in your pocket, you are wise, and you are handsome, and you sing well too.
Make sure to send a lazy man the angel of death.
Don't open a shop unless you know how to smile.
The only truly dead are those who have been forgotten.
If you can't go over, you must go under.
You don't need intelligence to have luck, but you do need luck to have intelligence.
He who prays for his neighbor will be heard for himself.
Because you have drowned others, you were drowned, and in the end, those who drowned you will be drowned.
People make plans and God laughs.
Not to have felt pain is not to have been human.
Worries go down better with soup than without.
You only hear three voices in this world: the babbling of the stream, Jewish law, and money.
Locks keep out only the honest.
A bird that you set free may be caught again, but a word that escapes your lips will not return.
I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.
Only love gives us the taste of eternity.
Sympathy is a little medicine to soothe the ache in another's heart.
Beware of the person who gives you advice according to his own interests.
It is easier to guard a sack full of fleas than a girl in love.
Look for the good, not the evil, in the conduct of members of the family.
Against stupidity; God Himself is helpless.
Hospitality is one form of worship.
In a restaurant choose a table near a waiter.
The innkeeper loves a drunkard, but not for a son-in-law.
A mother understands what a child does not say.
A good son-in-law is like the acquisition of a new son; a bad one is like the loss of your daughter.
Loneliness breaks the spirit.
Your friend has a friend, and your friend's friend has another friend -- so know when to keep quiet.
The righteous say little and do much.
A slave shows his true character, not while he is enslaved but when he becomes a master.
When you have no choice, mobilize the spirit of courage.
If there is bitterness in the heart, sugar in the mouth won't make life sweeter.
Better an honest smack in the face than a false kiss.
If you lie on the ground, you cannot fall.
You can't force anyone to love you or to lend you money.
The worst life is better than the best death.
The good fellow to everyone is a good friend to no one.
When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.
As he thinks in his heart, so he is.
Do not ask questions of fairy tales.
God gives burdens also shoulders.
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
The man who gives little with a smile gives more than the man who gives much with a frown.
Do not make yourself so big, you are not so small.
If God lived on earth, people would break his windows.
When con men meet a legitimately honest man, they are so bewildered that they consider him a greater con man than themselves.
Be sure to send a lazy man for the angel of death.
There is no book that contains absolutely nothing bad, and there is no book that contains absolutely nothing good.
Anyone who teases you loves you.
First mend yourself, and then mend others.
As you teach, you learn.
Ideas are something that usually comes like fireman- too late.
A person worries about the past, distresses about the present, and fears the future.
Don't sell the sun to buy a candle.
If the rich could hire someone else to die for them, the poor would make a wonderful living. .
He that does not bring up his son to some honest calling and employment brings him up to be a thief.
Don't make a fence more expensive or more important than what it is fencing.
Love is a sweet dream, and marriage is the alarm clock.
Do not meet troubles half-way.
Commit a sin twice and it will not seem a crime.
First improve yourself, and then judge others.
Even the most expensive clock still shows sixty minutes in every hour.
Charity is the spice of riches.
All things grow with time -- except grief.
As you do, so will be done to you.
A friend you have to buy; enemies you get for nothing.
Do not be wise in words - be wise in deeds.
No one is as deaf as the man who will not listen.
First learn, and then form opinions.
He who puts up with insult invites injury.
The person who only accepts friends without faults will never have any real friends.
In choosing a friend, go up a step.
He who has no hand cannot clench his fist.
People are like grass in the field: some blossom, some wither.
The Jews, also known as the Jewish people are widely dispersed cultural community people , originally descended from the ancient Hebrews and sharing an ethnic heritage based on Judaism.