Czech Republic Proverbs

Enjoy dozens of witty and insightful proverbs and idioms that have been passed down from one generation to the next for hundreds of years in the Czech Republic!

• You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
• Guests and fish stink at the third day.
• Our parents taught us to speak and the world taught us to be silent.
• The person who God shows a treasure to must dig it out himself.
• Forbidden fruit tastes the best.
• When the cat is not home, the mice have a party.
• Wars are caused by women and priests.
• A word spoken is past recalling.
• If a woman doesn’t know what she has to answer, then the sea is dry.
• Without work, there are no koláče [Czech pastry].
• The world at large doesn’t lead to hell nor does the monastery lead to heaven.
• There are no cakes without work.
• Only in water can you learn to swim.
• Warm food, warm friendships.
• He who comes sooner shall grind sooner.
• Still waters wash out banks.
• The first sin makes the bed for the second.
• Extol the virtue of water, but drink wine.
• Against the beastly human being even the gods are powerless.
• Doubts mean losing half of one’s case beforehand.
• A hundred times nothing killed the donkey.
• It is usually dark below the candlestick.
• If you want to hear the truth about yourself, offend your neighbor.
• Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
• He who gives is foolish; he who doesn’t accept is even more so.
• If you wake up in the morning and feel no pain, it is to be feared that you died in the night.
• A lazy mouth is a sheer disaster.
• You are so many times a human how many languages you know.
• The early bird hops further.
• The law has a nose of wax.
• Joy and sorrow sleep in the same bed.
• He who is not lazy shall get much green.
• What is called into a forest is the same what is echoed from the forest.
• Good memories last long, bad ones last longer.
• Don’t go to the pub without money.
• No church without a sermon.
• The way one eats is the way one works.
• You will use in the old what you have learned young.
• God’s mills mill slowly, but surely.
• No man has fallen from the sky learned.
• Even small fish are fish.
• It is better not to begin than, having begun, leave unfinished.
• Long tongue—short hands.
• There is no smoke without fire.
• Better late than never.
• The moon does not care if the dog barks at it.
• When the fool knows when to be silent, he would be sitting among the wise.
• There’s a bit of truth in every gossip.
• A crow sits next to a crow.
• He who has not been given brains from above will not buy them at the apothecary.

For thousands more proverbs and words of wisdom, collected from over 40 countries, check out Proverbs from Around the World!