R. Keith is the author of Chicken Scratch (forth coming 2017), Background (iquieto press), How to design a hail storm (Another new calligraphy), Signature Move (Knives Forks and Spoons) and re: verbs (Bareback editions), as well as four chapbooks. His writing appears in Canadian and international literary journals.
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Maxim Shuffles
Nature abhors louder than words
He that goes a-borrowing, is always in the wrong
He who is absent is in the eye of the beholder
Beauty is a good servant but a bad master
Out of the mouth a vacuum
He who travels fastest goes a-sorrowing
There is no accounting for strange bedfellows
Actions speak down on your anger
Adversity makes it will
All good things must spoil its neighbours
Hunger is the best taste
The rotten apple travels alone
What goes around is better than none
Never let the sun come to an end
If anything can go wrong there is honey
A bad excuse must come to an end
Seeing comes around
Ask no questions, hear blood from a stone
Empty sacks the best form of defence
Attack is the best sauce
Where there are bees there is brass
Fire will never stand upright
A barking dog in small packages
The best things come in last year’s nest
Brevity is believing
Rome was meant to be broken
Promises are a great evil
A great book is nothing
You can’t get infinite capacity for taking pains
Where there is muck a silver lining
Civility costs the feast
Silence is the soul of wit
Hard words means consent
Genius is an ill tune
Familiarity break no bones
First impressions eat little fish
What’s bred on the bone was not built in a day
Better to wear out than be seen and not heard
Children should quench fire
Dirty water will make the most sound
Beauty draws with rust out
Faith favours fools
Facts are of babes
Fortune must come to an end
Good fences make good fiction
He that lives in hope dances to losers weepers
Fact is stranger than an ill bird that fouls its own nest
Finders keepers are most lasting
Empty vessels there shall be eagles gathered together
Better to be envied neighbours
A little knowledge will come out in flesh
Where the carcase is, for different folks
When things are at their worst, a single hair
Every cloud they begin to mend
Different strokes for its weakest link
The company is a dangerous thing
A chain is no stronger than the mother of good luck
A change is as good as odious
Comparisons are contempt
Easy come and fare worse
What you never had think alike
Hope for the best, makes the heart sick
When the gorse is out of bloom, the heart doesn’t grieve over
Go further, kissing’s out of fashion
Great minds prepare for the worst
What the eye doesn’t see is another’s gain
Half the truth easy go
Old habits you never miss
Idle people die hard
They who hesitate have the best leisure
Imitation is often a whole lie
Hunger is the sincerest form of flattery
Hope deferred drives the wolf out of the wood
If you can’t beat them, grow apace
Length begets till they die
Many a true word is spoken in loathing
When all you have is a hammer, please little minds
Strike while everything looks like a nail
It’s an ill wind that is lost
Ill weeds blows nobody good
No man is worth a load of hay
It’s not the work that kills, we shall catch larks
If the sky falls by favour
Don’t get mad, you don’t make anything
If you don’t make mistakes, get even
As you make your bed the root of all evil
Money is other manners
Other times, a blind mare
Misery is mightier than the sword
A shut mouth loves company
Moderation is another’s poison
The pen is in all things
Make hay so you must lie upon it
The mother of mischief out of mind
Out of sight always a whore
There is nothing new while the sun shines
The sharper the storm, the sweeter the meat
Pride catches no flies
Once a whore, makes perfect
Self-praise under the sun
One’s meat is shining in a puddle
The nearer the bone, the sooner it’s over
Practice makes a thief
The sun loses nothing by what you preach
One nail and little wool
History rots the sky
Opportunity cannot be recalled
Stretch your arms no further, you shouldn’t be in the circus
If you can’t ride two horses at once, help you to sorrow
Second thoughts are soon rotten
Revolutions are not its own reward
Virtue is no recommendation
Soon ripe, but few are chosen
Much cry drives out another
Troubled shared is made with rose water
What you see is trouble halved
Slow is what you get
Nothing so bold than your arm will reach
Winter never goes out like a lamb
Things past get burned
There is always room at ‘twixt cup and lip
There’s man a slip in numbers
Help you to salt, the measure of all things
Variety repeats itself
Play with fire, the spice of life
Threatened men return to the sore tooth
Lightning is thicker than water
A still tongue is the best teacher
Experience is cheap
Discretion never strikes in the same place twice
Dreams are the best part of valour
Practice, go by contraries
There is safety to every question
Blood speak afterwards
There are tricks in the unforeseen
A thief makes a wise head