Selection of Tuscan proverbs, sayings and idioms most used in Tuscany, as testimony to the wisdom of its people scattered among hills, mountains and sea.
Tuscan idioms
- House with a good neighbor, plus a few florins.
- Until the coffin, you always learn about it.
- Beautiful wife, sweet poison.
- Today is a flower, tomorrow we die.
- Far from the eyes, far from the heart.
- To every bird its nest is beautiful.
- Jump of Arno in Bacchiglione.
- A stingy prodigal father.
- In church with Saints, and in tavern with gluttons.
- Those who laugh too much are crazy; and who does not laugh is a cat breed.
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- Change the music, but the players are the same.
- Friend of everyone and nobody, he is one.
- Better help than fifty tips.
- Where there is bread, there can be a word.
- Trust me he was a good man, not trusting him was better.
- Crows with crows, they don't gouge out their eyes.
- If my grandmother had wheels, it was a cart.
- A nut in a vineyard, a mole in a meadow, a legista in a land, a pig in a field of corn, and a bad governor in a city, are very much to spoil everything.
- Blind Florentines, crazy Sienese, treacherous Pisans, gentlemen from Lucca, Maremma God escape the dogs.
- Against force the reason is not valid.
- I am the owner, but the one in charge is my wife.
- With art and deception, you live half a year.
- The midwife lives with the living, the gravedigger with the dead and the priest with both.
- Command who can, and obey who must.
- Doctors' errors are covered by the earth, those of the rich by money.
- Who is taller, everyone's target.
- Without lilleri ‘un you will get lost.
- Who said woman, said damage.
- Bacchus, tobacco and Venus reduce man to ash.
- A madman throws a stone into the well, which then takes a hundred wise men to get it out.
- Whoever listens to the brains of others, throws away his.
- A mole grows beauty.
- Who has teeth, has no bread; and whoever has bread has no teeth.
- To every bird its nest is beautiful.
- Better envied than pitied.
- Three women make a market and four make a fair.
- Kiss of mouth often heart does not touch.
- Three things the field wants, good worker, good seed and good weather.
- He who marries is good, and who is not, is better.
- Whoever misses one friend, many lose.
- Whoever climbs higher than he must not, falls lower than he does not believe.
- Frenzy, jealousy, heresy, they are never healed by any way.
- Love and jealousy were born together.
- Sheep sky, water in pits.
- You have seen more ceilings than a house painter.
- The hanged man stands out, then he will hang you.
- Who does not feast, does not celebrate.
- Wrath without strength, nothing is worth.
- Worse is the envy of the friend than the snares of the enemy.
- Women and oxen, from your countries.
- Socera and nora, storm and gragnola.
- Those who badly seek fame, defame themselves.
- A dish with a good face is better than a lunch without love.
- Those who praise for interest would like to be the brother of the praised.
- Open door for those who bring, and those who do not, leave.
- January digger, February pruner, loving March, April artichoke, May cherry tree, June fruit store, July farmer, August peacher, September fig tree, October mostaio, November vintner, December favaio.
- Those who 'have money' have cravings.
- Everything goes down in old age, except avarice, prudence and wisdom.
- The patient while he expires always hopes.
- Disdain grows love.
Tuscan sayings
- Friendship has to be reduced, not to teach.
- They know more wise and mad than wise alone.
- Those who offend forget it and those who are offended remember it.
- A soggy pear spoils a mountain.
- Made the law, malice thought.
- Don't let the farmer know how good the cheese is with the pears.
- I am not a Guelph, nor is Ghibellin appealing: whoever feeds me, I keep for that.
- Women are holy in church, angels in the street, devils in the house, owls at the window and magpies at the door.
- Everyone loves justice in the home of others.
- Women always tell the truth; but they don't say it whole.
- Prato bread, Pomino wine, Siena potta, Florentine cinci.
- If one blind leads the other, both fall into the pit.
- When the case is desperate, Providence is near.
- If you want to be healthy, piss often like the dog.
- Friendships must be immortal, and mortal enmities.
- Good worker, he makes two on one farm; bad, makes it a medium.
- There is no better mirror than the old friend.
- There are those who kiss such a hand that they would like to see cut off.
- Sad at that house where the hen sings and the cock is silent.
- Tears of women, fountain of malice.
- The friend is not known until he is lost.
- Whoever loses the stuff loses a lot, but who loses the heart loses everything.
- It is better to err with many who are wise alone.
- The life of the flatterer is in bloom.
- Those who mock the lame take care to be straight.
- Distant water does not put out the fire.
- When the dog is seared, the fresh water seems warm to him.
- The poor are the first at the gallows, and the last at the table.
- Up to forty, you laugh and sing; from forty in there, you give me from here, you give me from there.
- The pitiful doctor makes the stink sore.
- It is better to be a lizard's head than a dragon's tail.
- Give yourself a good name and piss in bed, and they'll say you've sweated.
- Tell the truth to one, and he is your enemy.
- Whom God wants to chastise, lift your brain.
- Better smells of shit than poor.
- He who gives early is as if he is giving twice.
- Patience is a good herb, but it is not born in all gardens.
- Get thirsty with ham.
- Two things are good after death: the miser and the pig.
- Truth can languish but not perish.
- Once the dog runs and once the hare.
- Truth is the daughter of time.
- It is better to give and repent than to hold and suffer.
- Flatterers and parasites are like lice.
- Whoever bases on the people, bases on mud.
- Those who are missing a moment in their honor will not repair it in one hundred years.
- If only the beautiful girls got married, what would the ugly women do?
- Who did the stuff, can do the person.
- Tell me who you practice, and I'll tell you who you are.
- Do who can, before the weather changes; that all you leave are lost.
- Today bad, tomorrow good, take the world as it comes.
- The first olive is gold, the second silver, the third is worthless.
- To know a smart one takes a smart one and a half.
- Who is born beautiful, is born married.
- Poets, painters, astrologers and musicians make a madhouse.
- You don't have to make the devil blacker than it is.
- Better a thing done than a hundred to do.
- No sinless person, no sin without remorse.
- Small water makes a great wind stop.
- When Siena cries, Florence laughs.
Tuscan proverbs
- Pull the thread of a skirt more than an ox cart from the Chiana.
- The most donkey is made prior.
- Women are the purge of the purse, the paradise of the body, and the hell of the soul.
- Those who caress you more than they usually do, or have deceived you or deceive you, want you.
- Those who leave the old way for the new, deceived seven times find themselves.
- When the fox preaches, beware, chickens.
- The heart of women is made in segments like the popone.
- House with a good neighbor, plus a few florins.
- A man is worth a hundred, and a hundred is not worth one.
- God save you from a bad neighbor, and a violin beginner.
- What was hard to suffer, is sweet to remember.
- You can do evil by force, but not good.
- The heart of the rascals is a stormy sea.
- It is better to have a hold, than a hundred piglia piglia.
- An enemy is too much, and a hundred friends are not enough.
- Good words and bad deeds, deceive wise and mad.
- The heart has its reasons and does not mean reason.
- With the ship broken every wind is against.
- Honor brings gold, but gold does not honor.
- Necessity has no law.
- The bread of others is salty.
- It is better to die with honor than to live with shame.
- Upon death and payment, delay as much as you can.
- Hard with hard does not make good wall.
- Love is not beautiful if it is not a litigello.
- No wonder it lasts longer than three days.
- Beauty without grace is a hook without bait.
- Oil, vinegar, pepper and salt make a boot good.
- Learn the craft and put it there; when you need it, search it out.
- Whenever one laughs, he pulls a nail to the coffin.
- They make the last dress without pockets.
- You can't have a full barrel and a drunk wife.
- Good fame is like cypress.
- In small barrels there is er bono wine.
- Before choosing a friend, we must have eaten salt there for seven years.
- In the war of love, those who flee win.
- Often the damages are taught to men.
- In peace, young people bury old people, but in war old people bury young people.
- Beauty without goodness is home without door, ship without wind, source without water.
- In danger, you can see who as a friend has true faith.
- You have to be a fool not to pay the salt.
- The world belongs to those who can tease it.
- Ugly in the band, nice in the square.
- Two feet don't fit in a sock.
- My house, my house, however small you are, you look like an abbey.
- Those who delay in giving can't give.
- Those who drown would hang themselves on the ropes of heaven.
- Every non-compliant finds its conformity.
- Small bells are not heard when large bells ring.
- Every ten years one man needs the other.
- A stone in the head is better than a wound in honor.
- All troubles are troubles, but the trouble without bread is the biggest.
- Who is covered when it rains, is very crazy if he moves; if he moves and gets wet, he's crazy if he complains.
- It is no more a good job than having no thoughts.
- Bite of sheep never passes the skin.
- It is not evil equal to that which takes pleasure in hurting.
- Who has a beautiful wife is not all his.
- Bad company makes bad blood.
- Those who praise themselves will cheat.
- The greatest glory of winning is forgiving the defeated.
- The accident, turns, turns, goes back to whoever pulls it.
- He who yawns cannot lie: he is hungry or wants to sleep.
- Honesty and kindness outweigh any beauty.
- The remoteness of any great plague.
- Do not mention the rope in the hangman's house.
- Praise benefits the wise and harms the madman.
- The tongue hits where the tooth is in pain.
