Old Adage Quotes & Sayings

One of the things that you learn, having been in this [President's] office for four years, is the old adage of Abraham Lincoln's. That with public opinion there's nothing you can't do and without public opinion there's very little you can get done. — Barack Obama

remember the old adage "You can't judge a book by its cover"? I'm here to tell you that's complete bullshit — Tim Castleman

The old adage is, 'Write what you know.' But if you only do that, your work becomes claustrophobic. I say, 'Write what you want to know.' — Julia Glass

An old bandit adage: A bell is a cup until it is struck. — Colin Meloy

Sartre is one example of someone who does just this. Every text is, after all, a human document and whatever Kierkegaard thought about God was clearly a matter of human thought that can, in principle, be retrieved and interpreted by other human beings. A phenomenological approach to religion must, it seems to me, adopt the old adage: nothing human is alien to me. — George Pattison

There is an old adage about gladiators, - that they plan their fight in the ring. — Seneca.

The Quantified Self movement argues that the self is nothing but mathematical patterns. These patterns are so complex that the human mind has no chance of understanding them. So if you wish to obey the old adage and know thyself, you should not waste your time on philosophy, meditation or psychoanalysis, but rather you should systematically collect biometric data and allow algorithms to analyse them for you and tell you who your are and what you should do. — Yuval Noah Harari

It's the old adage, 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained, ... While this is unique, we consider ourselves unique. — Gavin Newsom

Regardless of the difficulties we may face individually, in our families, in our communities and in our nation, the old adage is still true - you can make excuses or you can make progress, but you cannot make both! The America I know doesn't make excuses. — Mia Love

The old adage--humor is the best way to make the unbearable bearable--may be true. — Mary Ann Shaffer

I'm a longtime believer in the old adage that sunlight is the best disinfectant, particularly in politics. — Mike Quigley

old military adage of the seven Ps, piss poor planning produces piss poor performance, — Glen R. Stansfield

I'm very wary of fawning too much over heroes. There's an old adage that heroes are best kept at arm's length, and in a few instances in my life, that's been true. — W. Earl Brown

responsive. She now realized that the old adage 'he who wants friends must show himself friendly' was right. — Brenda Barrett

The old adage, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is' isn't always correct. In fact, the suspicion, cynicism, and doubt that are inherent in this belief can and does keep people from taking advantage of excellent opportunities. — Richard Carlson

An old adage warns: If you don't know your history, you will be forever condemned to repeat it. Likewise, if you don't know your science fiction, and heed its warnings, you could condemn the Earth to future catastrophe. — Kelly Steed

There's an old adage that says that money is the root of all evil. Bullshit. Lack of money is the root of all evil. — Gene Simmons

We must strive to be like the moon.' An old man in Kabati repeated this sentence often ... the adage served to remind people to always be on their best behavior and to be good to others. [S]he said that people complain when there is too much sun and it gets unbearably hot, and also when it rains too much or when it is cold. But, no one grumbles when the moon shines. Everyone becomes happy and appreciates the moon in their own special way. Children watch their shadows and play in its light, people gather at the square to tell stories and dance through the night. A lot of happy things happen when the moon shines. These are some of the reasons why we should want to be like the moon. — Ishmael Beah

Aspiring novelists should be taught that the old adage, "Write about what you know," isn't limited to what you have personally experienced. Vicarious experience is also a great part of what you know. Read a lot of history and it becomes part of your store of knowledge, part of what you're prepared to write about. The same goes for stories and memories that other people share with you. — James Carlos Blake

One of the first things successful people realize is the old adage, "If it is to be, it is up to me." That is, for you, the fact that your success and your course is up to you. This doesn't mean that you do it all alone. It simply means that you take responsibility for your life and your career. — Jim Rohn

It is an old, old adage that if you want someone to do something, get them to believe it is their idea. Humanity is mind controlled and onlyslightly more conscious than your average zombie. Far fetched? No, no. I define mind control as the manipulation of someone's mind so that they think, and therefor act, the way you want them to. — David Icke

Let's revise the old adage for our times. All that it requires for evil to succeed is that enough lazy, stupid bastards believe everything they're told. — Karen Traviss

Criticism is an alluring substitute for creation, because tearing
things down, unlike building them up, really is as easy as falling off a stump. It's blissfully simple to strike a savvy, sophisticated pose by attacking someone else's creations, but the old adage is right: Any fool can burn down a barn. Building one is something else again. — Martha Beck

My feeling is, if a dog is that hard up to break free, let it go. It's like a boyfriend who wants to break up. We all know the old adage "If you set someone free, and he never comes back, then he was never yours." I understand the main fear with setting dogs loose is they could get hit by a car, but so could an ex boyfriend. That's just a chance you have to take. — Chelsea Handler

I consider myself to be a true friend of the Israeli people. But I define friendship as someone who takes care of a friend, who just doesn't use or exploit a friend. And, you know, there's that old adage: 'Friends don't let friends drive drunk'. — Scott Ritter

After watching the State of the Union address the other night [1994], I'm reminded of the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Only in this case, it's not flattery, but grand larceny: the intellectual theft of ideas that you and I recognize as our own. Speech delivery counts for little on the world stage unless you have convictions, and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row seats. — Ronald Reagan

The old adage about a leopard never changing its spots? Too fucking right — Sofia Tate

Maybe that old adage about not being able to have a good apartment, a good relationship, and a good job at the same time is true. — Padma Lakshmi

When I asked Richard Branson if he felt luck played a part in his success, he answered, "Yes, of course, we are all lucky. If you live in a free society, you are lucky. Luck surrounds us every day; we are constantly having lucky things happen to us, whether you recognize it or not. I have not been any more lucky or unlucky than anyone else. The difference is when luck came my way, I took advantage of it." Ah, spoken like a man knighted with wisdom. While we're on the topic, it's my belief that the old adage we often hear - "Luck is when opportunity meets preparation" - isn't enough. I believe there are two other critical components to "luck. — Darren Hardy

There's the old saying that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. There are few better places to apply that adage than the drug war. It's time to end it. It's time to restore peace and harmony to Latin America and the United States. It's time to end the failed war on drugs. It's time to legalize drugs. — Jacob G. Hornberger

A pointed illustration indeed of the old adage that "extremes meet". — Charlotte Bronte

There's an old adage in writing: 'Don't tell, but show.' Writing is not psychology. We do not talk 'about' feelings. Instead the writer feels and through her words awakens those feelings in the reader. The writer takes the reader's hand and guides him through the valley of sorrow and joy without ever having to mention those words. — Natalie Goldberg

There's an old adage," he said, "translated from the ancient Coptic, that contains all the wisdom of the ages
"Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die. — Beryl Markham

Mum repeated the old adage that money can't buy you everything ... before adding that she prefers using credit cards instead. — Kirkland Ciccone

America is full of businesses bearing old Christian names, but which are really owned and run by Jews. Most of them have been acquired in the manner I have just described, the way the Jew creates something out of nothing (slow strangling). The Jew, better than anyone else in the world knows how to dispossess the poor and the members of the middle classes. To fit this case, the old P.T. Barnum adage needs only a little changing. A gentile enters business every minute, with two Jews waiting to take him out of it. — Samuel Roth

Keep at it! Remember marketing is building a relationship! If you use marketing for a year and stop, you cut off your relationship with the larger community. Then you will have to re-start the relationship all over again. The old adage "it takes six to stick" is proven true over and over again. I realized this in year three of our church plant. I think of the hundreds of people that came to our services that had no connection with me or our people because we were willing to build a sustained relationship with them through marketing. — Gary Rohrmayer

If we provide the young with a strong foundation, we can leave behind a legacy substantially greater than most are able to bequeath. As for the women, the old adage that you invest in a woman, you invest in a generation, still rings true today. — Joyce Banda

I don't know what I believe anymore, and really, I try not to think about it. But the psychologists say that suicide is a behavioral contagion. It's the old adage "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you, too?" Apparently the answer is yes. To — Suzanne Young

I really subscribe to that old adage that you should never let the audience get ahead of you for a second. So if the film's abrasive and wrongfoots people then, y'know, that's great. But I hope it involves an audience. — Paul Thomas Anderson

You know the old adage: give a woman a bag and she'll fill it for a day. Teach a woman to pack and she'll fill every damn bag she owns (or something of that ilk). — Annmarie O'Connor

If I had only known kittens can climb drapes, perch on top of a traverse rod, and then screech like some femme fatale in a low budget horror flick to be rescued. That a kitten sounds like a herd of buffalo running on hardwood floors in the middle of the night. If I had only known a kitten's claws can sink through a sheet into your balls while you're jerking off. An old adage says, "Live and learn," and I amassed an encyclopedic amount out cat wisdom in less than twenty-four hours. — K.C. Kendricks

This is not a book about teaching a child how to read; it's about teaching a child to want to read. There's an education adage that goes, "What we teach children to love and desire will always outweigh what we make them learn." The fact is that some children learn to read sooner than others, while some learn better than others. There is a difference. For the parent who thinks that sooner is better, who has an eighteen-month-old child barking at flash cards, my response is: sooner is not better. Are the dinner guests who arrive an hour early better guests than those who arrive on time? Of course not. — Jim Trelease

Old Lights include the resurgent fundamentalists in every religion who put a freeze on history and fortify their adherents against the "new dark age" in which they are forced to live. "Back to the Bible," Old Lights shout; "back to the Koran," Old Lights thunder. But not everything Old Lights say is wrong. Much is right. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the old adage reminds us. — Leonard Sweet

The old adage "If you can't beat them, join them", to me is just a way of saying that you're weak. My motto is : "If you can't beat them, then you aren't fighting dirty enough". — Quinn Loftis

A heart consumed with bitterness will turn to stone.
An old Lightkeepers adage, spoken by Boaz to Luka. — Rona V Flynn

The old adage that you shouldn't change a winning team doesn't apply in modern international football because managers have to study the opposition and pick players who exploit their weaknesses. — Glenn Hoddle

Live and let live" is an old adage. "Live and help live" is a better one. — David O. McKay

There's that old adage about how there's only seven plots in the world and Shakespeare's done them all before. — Terri Windling

The old adage says that it's better to be lucky than good. Apparently having the right network is better than both. At — J.D. Vance

An old adage says that a good rider can hear his horse speak and a great rider can hear his horse whisper. — Elizabeth Letts

He was as yet not sufficiently experienced in ruffianism to know that one villain always sacrifices another to advance his own project; he was credulous enough to believe in the old adage of honor amongst thieves. — Emile Gaboriau

As the old Ranger adage went If a person doesn't expect to see someone, odds are he won't. — John Flanagan

Gold is where you find it, according to an old adage, but judging from the record of our experience, oil must be sought first of all in our minds. — Wallace Pratt

As with many things in life-what we know at 30we wish we knew at 20-what we know at 40we wish we knew at 25and so on. 'If I knew then, what I know now' is the old adage that has been said for generations. — Kim Mitchell

Have you heard the old adage advising to always grow oleanders at your back door? Nicci asked. — Terry Goodkind

A lie well told, as the Old Singhalese adage goes, is worth a thousand facts. — John Gimlette

You know the old adage that the customer's always right? Well, I kind of think that the opposite is true. The customer is rarely right. — Charlie Trotter

The old adage is true, people will only be as good to you as you are to yourself. They will follow your example, and those who don't will be left by the wayside. — Niecy Nash

Every time is a time for comedy in a world of tension that would languish without it. But I cannot confine myself to lightness in a period of human life that demands light ... We all know that, as the old adage has it, "It is later than you think." ... , but I also say occasionally: "It is lighter than you think." In this light let's not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness. — James Thurber

As the old military adage goes, "If you're in a fair fight, you're doing it wrong. — Gary J. Byrne

It's the old adage: You can make a pizza so cheap, nobody will eat it. You can make an airline so cheap, nobody will fly it. — Gordon Bethune

That old adage, that "music is a universal language", is really true. Even if all of the lyrics are understood, they seem to connect with it really well and in some ways, more so. — William Fitzsimmons

So it's like that old adage about seeing the cup as half full rather than half empty?"
"That's a fair way to look at it. No matter what happens to you in your life, you alone have the capacity to choose your response to it. When you form the habit of searching for the positive in every circumstance, your life will move into its highest dimensions. This is one of the greatest of all the natural laws."
"And it all starts with using your mind more effectively?"
"Exactly, John. All success in life, whether material or spiritual, starts with that twelve-pound mass sitting between your shoulders. Or more specifically, with the thoughts that you put into your mind every second of every minute of every day. Your outer world reflects the state of your inner world. By controlling the thoughts that you think and the way you respond to the events of your life, you begin to control your destiny. — Robin S. Sharma

The old adage of forgive and forget became a trudge through quicksand on a beach as high tide crashed onto the shore. — I.E. Castellano

The old Wall Street adage "never invest in anything that eats or needs repairs" may apply to racehorses, but it's malarkey when it comes to houses. — Peter Lynch

It's an old adage that the way to be safe is never to be secure ... Each one of us requires the spur of insecurity to force us to do our best. — Harold W. Dodds

It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy-this applies to public as well as private life-to States as well as individuals. — George Washington

The old adage was true; the surest proof of the Faith is that it has survived for two thousand years....in spite of the men that run it. — Val Bianco

If you must be in a hurry, then let it be according to the old adage, and hasten slowly. — Vincent De Paul

There's an old adage that for every second too fast per mile in the first half of the race, you'll run at least 2 seconds slower at the end. — Jeff Galloway

Dictators during the entire history of this planet have used similar techniques. By not letting the people of their country know what conditions existed outside their boundaries, they could get the people to fight to stay in those conditions. It was the old adage: Convince a slave that he's free , and he will fight to maintain his slavery . — Samuel R. Delany

That break comes for all of us, at different times and in different ways. The nourishment of food, the bonds of friendship, the occasions for celebration, and the delights of legitimate pleasure end in a matter of a moment for each life and each relationship. It is to this vulnerability of living that Jesus points His finger. The poet puts it in these words: Our life contains a thousand springs and dies if one be gone; Strange that a harp of a thousand strings can stay in tune so long. There is an old adage that says you can give a hungry man a fish, or better still, you can teach him how to fish. Jesus would add that you can teach a person how to fish, but the most successful fisherman has hungers fish will not satisfy. G — Ravi Zacharias

A lesser man might have begrudged
him that, but remembering the old adage, "The finder's goods shall
he retain / Nor mind the loser's dreadful pain," I rejoiced, rather, in his good
fortune. — Vinnie Tesla

Old Korean adage, "Even jade has flaws." Or, in other words: Nothing in life is ever perfect. — Alan Brennert

I would advise the curious reader to keep in mind the old adage "truth is stranger than fiction." Expect the most outlandish, fantastic and unbelievable elements of this story to be true, and the more low-key elements to be fudged. — Dan Grajek

No more quickly can a person rob you of your joy and peace than when that individual succeeds at making you feel like you're less than worthy of God as compared to his/her own self. The old adage "You're on your way to hell, and I'm on my way to heaven" spoken or implied to another, is the most predominantly effective way to make someone feel better about himself; and he doesn't even have to prove he's better in this life on earth because now he can just say "Wait 'til I'm looking down at you while you're in hell!" But don't be robbed of your joy and peace, individuals or groups of people like that don't know where God is; He is a whisper-distance away from you, is all. — C. JoyBell C.

Long ago I added to the true old adage of "What is everybody's business is nobody's business," another clause which, I think, morethan any other principle has served to influence my actions in life. That is, What is nobody's business is my business. — Clara Barton

The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his 'basic rights.' — Thomas Sowell

The old adage that the sins of the father fall upon the children has no better example to prove its truth than the example of the bastard. He is the victim; he suffers the penalty of a sin committed before he was born. In a village where every cupboard skeleton is the common knowledge of all, where every tongue hat has a weakness for wagging, has plenty of material to wag about, the existence of an illicit sexual union is not made a pleasant one. — Catherine Bailey

I believe in that old adage that 'as goes California, so goes the country.' — Kamala Harris

For the longest time I ignored or dismissed the adage that time flies as we get older because I didn't feel old enough for the "as we get older" clause to apply. Lately, though, I've started to think that I am, and that it does. Time isn't speeding up; it's pace is cruelly steady, a fact of which I am ever more painfully aware. — Alan Burdick

Unless the old adage must be verified, That beggars mounted, run their horse to death. — William Shakespeare

The old adage applied: if God were in the details, Colonel Washington would have been there to greet him upon arrival. — Joseph J. Ellis

Be careful not to give too much credence to the old adage that time heals. Mark my word. It's God that heals. Time only tells. — Beth Moore

There is an old adage that the quickest way to drop your tax take is to increase taxes. If capital gains tax is going to be 50 percent, my contingent capital gains tax is going to be 250 million pounds. — Peter Hargreaves

There's an old adage: the sensation of drowning reminds you of everything you ever knew about swimming. — Frederick Weisel

It is an old adage, "All is fair in love as in war," but I thought not of general laws, and only felt a private grievance. — Jane Swisshelm

What we would think of as a beef animal had the double purpose of being a working or draught animal that could pull heavy loads. There is an old adage, "A year to grow, two years to plough and a year to fatten." The beef medieval people would have eaten would have been a maturer, denser meat than we are used to today. I have always longed to try it. The muscle acquired from a working ox would have broken down over the fattening year and provided wonderful fat covering and marbling. Given the amount of brewing that took place, the odds are that the animals would have been fed a little drained mash from time to time. Kobe beef, that excessively expensive Japanese beef, was originally obtained from ex-plough animals whose muscles were broken down by mash from sake production and by massage. I'd like to think our beef might have had a not dissimilar flavour. — Clarissa Dickson Wright

It is a secret from nobody that the famous random event is most likely to arise from those parts of the world where the old adage"There is no alternative to victory" retains a high degree of plausibility. — Hannah Arendt

I find it surreal, then perfectly normal. I'm struck by how fast the surreal becomes the norm. I marvel at how unexciting it is to be famous, how mundane famous people are. They're confused, uncertain, insecure, and often hate what they do. It's something we always hear - like that old adage that money can't buy happiness-but we never believe it until we see it ourselves. Seeing it in 1992 brings me a new measure of confidence. — Andre Agassi

One of those adversaries was Kevin Maxwell, the privileged son of a hard-charging UK media mogul. Anyone who had taken on Maxwell and his well-connected father, Robert, found that the Maxwell family frequently proved the old adage about starting a war of words with someone who buys ink by the barrel. — Dan Ackerman

There's an old Internet adage that as soon as you compare something to the Nazis you lose the argument. — Jon Ronson

It is very difficult to apply the old Indian adage 'Do not judge another until you have walked a mile in his moccasins,' unless you get out of your own moccasins first. — Thomas Crum

The old adage that people only want what they can't have or what they can't tame - is totally primitive. A being of higher origins will know instinctively that life on earth is a series of chances, moments and concepts. That's really all that you have. So when you find one of these things and it makes you burn, or it makes you feel peace inside, or it makes you look forwards and backwards and here all at the same time - that's when you know to hold onto it. And you hold onto it with every fiber of your being. Because it's in the holding on of these chances and moments and concepts that life is lived. Every other kind of living is only in vitro. I don't care what psychologists say today about how the human mind works. Because one day they will reach this pinnacle and they will see what I see and they will look upon the old ways as primitive. As long and gone. We do not wish to have what we can't have. We wish to burn in whatever flame we have stepped into. — C. JoyBell C.

The old newspaper adage, 'If it bleeds, it leads,' is as true today as it was a century ago. — Peter Diamandis

Suicide is a behavioral contagion. It's old adage "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, then would you, too?" Apparently, the answer is yes. — Suzanne Young

Keeping in mind the old mountain adage that the longer you take to set up your bivy site, the shorter the bivy you have to endure, we ended up taking two hours to dig the snow cave. — Erhard Loretan

There's an old adage about everything looking better in the morning light. I'm guessing that whoever thought of that had never been punched in the face. — Tammy Blackwell

There is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far. — Theodore Roosevelt

As the old programming adage goes: you had a problem and tried to solve it using regular expressions. — Jeremy Walker