Proverbs from around the world:

• Choose your neighbor before your house and your companion before the road. (Arabic)
• Forgiving the unrepentant is like making pictures on water. (Japanese)
• God gives the grain, but we must make the furrow. (Bohemian)
• There are two good men: one dead, the other unborn. (Chinese)
• Give a loan and buy a quarrel. (Indian)
• Law is a flag, and gold is the wind that makes it wave. (Russian)
• Doubt is the key of knowledge. (Persian)
• Death does not recognize strength. (African)
• If the beginning is good, the end must be perfect. (Burmese)
• Hunger increases the understanding. (Lithuanian)
• Haste is the mother of imperfection. (Brazilian)
• True happiness consists in making happy. (Hindi)
• Experience is a precious gift, only given a man when his hair is gone. (Turkish)

(From The Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs, second edition, 1983.)