- Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
- Lorenzo Dow (d. 1834).[3]
- Meaning: Refers to a situation where both possibilities will lead to harm or blame.
- Desperate times call for desperate measures.
- The difference between a man and a cat or a dog is that only a man can write the names of the cat and the dog.
- Different strokes for different folks.
- Meaning: Someone prefers one thing; others, something different.
- Discretion is the better part of valour.
- Derived from "The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life." Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV Part One.
- Meaning: Caution is preferable to rash bravery.
- Does a One Legged Duck swim in circles?
- Do it today, tomorrow it may be against the law.
- Don't ask God to guide your footsteps if you're not willing to move your feet.
- Don't bark if you can't bite.
- meaning - Don't complain if you can't enforce your point of view.
- meaning - if you won't do it, don't say you will
- Don't bite off more than you can chew.
- Meaning: Do not take on more responsibility than you can handle at any one time.
- Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
- Meaning: Behave respectfully or deferentially to those who provide for you.
- Don't bring a knife to a gun fight.
- Don't burn your bridges.
- Meaning: Do not act in such a way as to leave yourself no alternative or no opportunity to "retreat."
- Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.
- Don't cross a bridge before you come to it.
- Meaning: Don't fret unnecessarily about future problems.
- Don't cry over spilt milk.
- Meaning: Don't worry about things that have already happened.
- Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
- Interpretation: Do not act to spite someone else if it is damaging to yourself.
- Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork.
- Meaning: Don't do something to yourself which causes your own downfall.
- Don't enter your nose in the affairs of others.
- Meaning: Do not mix yourself in others problems.
- Don't fall before you're pushed.
- Don't have too many irons in the fire.
- Possible interpretation: Do not take on more responsibility than you can handle.
- Don't judge a book by its cover.
- Meaning: Do not judge by appearances.
- Don't judge a man by the size of his hat, but by the angle of his tilt.
- Don't let procrastination eat your own clock.
- Meaning: Don't procrastinate most of the time as your chances and opportunities are wasted away.
- Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
- Possible interpretation: Do not look for faults in a gift.
- Don't make a mountain out of a molehill.
- Don't exaggerate small things / Don't make a big deal out of something minor.
- Don't mend what ain't broken.
- Alternatively, If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
- Alternatively, Leave well enough alone.
- Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
- Meaning: Do not rest all your hopes on one eventuality; plan for several cases.
- Don't put the cart before the horse.
- Meaning: Do things in the correct order.
- Cf. Dan Michael of Northgate, Ayenbite of Inwyt (1340): "Many religious folk set the plough before the oxen." (Middle English: "Moche uolk of religion зetteþ þe зuolз be-uore þe oksen.")
- Don't raise more Demons than you can lay down.
- Meaning: Do not do more wrongs than you can deal with, or put right.
- Don't shut the barn door after the horse is gone.
- Possible interpretation: Prepare for things to go wrong rather than worrying about them after the fact.
- Don't spit into the wind.
- Or, Don't piss into the wind.
- Meaning, don't take actions which you know will harm yourself or be futile.
- Don't spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar.
- Meaning: Don't jeopardize a project - especially a large one - by being miserly or cutting corners.
- A ha'p'orth (pronounced haypeth) is a halfpenny-worth, i.e. a very small amount.
- Meaning: Don't jeopardize a project - especially a large one - by being miserly or cutting corners.
- Don't take life too seriously; you'll never get out of it alive.
- Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
- Possible interpretation: Do not, in an attempt to remove something undesirable, lose things that are valuable.
- Don't try to teach a pig to sing. It doesn't work, and you'll annoy the pig.
- Meaning: Don't go into a relationship expecting to change your partner, it doesn't work.
- Don't worry, God has a plan.
- - Jiv
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- Distance makes the heart grow fonder.
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- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
- Based on the Bible (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31).[4]; a statement of the ethic of reciprocity
- Doctors make the worst patients.
- The dog is nude though the clothing cost a penny.
- Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom.
- Dreams are not the ones which come when you sleep, but they are the ones which will not let you sleep.
- Meaning: Dreams in your sleep are different from the dreams of your future.
- A drop of knowledge is greater than an ocean of strength.
- A dull pencil is greater than the sharpest memory.
Ref: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/English_proverbs
