A PROVERB, says the Oxford Dictionary, is ‘a short pithy saying in common and recognized use; a concise sentence, often metaphorical or alliterative in form, which is held to express some truth ...

THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH PROVERBS—William George Smith and Janet E. Heseltine—Oxford University Press ($6.50). To give subtillty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion . . . ...

Good artists copy; great artists steal. Perhaps Benjamin Franklin knew as much, because when he wrote his famous Poor Richard’s Almanack, he did not cite sources for the proverbs that peppered its ...