Japanese Proverbs

One kind word can warm three winter months

The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists

When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods.

Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.

First the man takes a drink. Then the drink takes a drink. Then the drink takes the man.

A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle.
A statement once let loose cannot be caught by four horses.
An ant hole may collapse an embankment.

Better to be a crystal and to be broken, than to be a tile upon the housetop.

Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse.
Don't rejoice over him that goes, before you see him that comes.
Fortune will call at the smiling gate.
He is not poor that hath not feel content.

If I peddle salt, it rains; if I peddle flour, the wind blows.

If you wait, there will come nectar - like fair weather.
Luck is like having a rice dumpling fly into your mouth.
Never trust a woman, even if she has borne you seven children.
Not to know is to be a Buddha.
Poverty is no sin, but terribly inconvenient.
Proof rather than argument.

Some people like to make of life a garden, and to walk only within its paths.
Ten men, ten minds.

The acolyte at the gate reads scriptures he has never learnt.
The poor sleep soundly.
The tongue is more to be feared than the sword.

There are no national frontiers to learning.
To endure what is unendurable is true endurance.
To kick with sore toe only hurts foot.
Too many boatmen will run the boat up to the top of the mountains.

Unless you enter the tiger's den you cannot take the cubs.
We are no more than candles burning in the wind.

When folly passes by, reason draws back.
Wine is the best broom for troubles.
Without oars, you cannot cross in a boat.