Aphorisms from around the globe

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Friday, 16 November 2007.

~Compiled from various sources~

• If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.
• Public before private and country before family.
• Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one.
• Wait for a rabbit to hit upon a tree and killed in order to catch it.
• Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend’s forehead.
• Teachers open the door but you must walk through it yourself.
• Once on a tiger’s back, it is hard to alight.
• A tiger never returns to his prey he did not finish off.
• No wind, no waves.
• Talk doesn’t cook rice.
• If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
• There are always ears on the other side of the wall.
• Steal a bell with one’s ears covered.
• Virginity like bubble – one prick all gone.
• Man who runs in front of car gets tired.
• Man who runs behind the car gets exhausted.
• Man with hand in pocket feels cocky all day.
• Foolish man gives wife grand piano, wise man gives wife upright organ.
• Man with one chopstick goes hungry.
• Man who scratches ass should not bite fingernails.
• Baseball is wrong; man with four nails cannot walk.
• War doesn’t determine who is right, war determines who is left.
• Wife puts husband in doghouse soon find him in cat house.
• Man who fights with wife all day gets no piece at night.
• It takes many nails to build crib but one screw to fill it.
• Man who drives like hell bound to get there.
• Man who stands on toilet is high on pot.
• Man who lives in glasshouse should change clothes in basement.
• Man who fishes in other man’s well often catches crabs.
• Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
• Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
• An oral contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
• If we do not succeed, we run the risk of failure.
• You can’t have everything, where would you put it?
• The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.
• The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
• A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
• Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.
• Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.
• If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
• No one is listening until you make a mistake.
• Always remember you’re unique, just like everyone else.
• When everything’s going your way, you’re driving in the wrong lane.
• Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue.
• The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
• If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.
• Perspective is the eye of the beholder.
• The shortest distance between two points is how far apart they are.
• Free advice is worth what you paid for it.
• If you lend send someone $20, and never see that person again … it was probably worth it.