Proverbs seem to have lost their place in the education of the young. As compiler Louis A Berman points out in his introductory piece, in Elizabethan England, schoolboys memorized hundreds of proverbs and maxims, in English and in Latin. Many modern scholars take great pleasure in criticizing the fact that proverbs contradict one another and thus have little value in our times. Berman challenges readers to find their own wisdom in these pages and not to worry about whether one proverb contradicts another.
This fine resource contains 10,000 indexed entries and is one of the few collections of proverbs to also contain a wide selection of humorous quip, quotes, parodies, clichés, and aphorisms. This additive makes the volume both enlightening and entertaining.
