Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

For a long time, I operated under the Chinese proverb that there are four kinds of leaders: those who you laugh at, those who you hate, those who you love and those who you don’t even know that they’re leaders.

I believe that patterns tend to repeat themselves and there are connections between the past and the present. There is the old proverb that reads, ‘You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been‘. For me, history is like that. When you take history and combine it with myth, then you get mystery.

A proverb is good sense brought to a point.

Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.

When I was a boy, the priest, my uncle, carefully inculcated upon me this proverb, which I then learned and have ever since kept in my mind: ‘Dico tibi verum, Libertas optima rerum; Nunquam servili, sub nexu vivito, fili.’ ‘I tell you a truth: Liberty is the best of things, my son; never live under any slavish bond.’

A proverb is the wisdom of many and the wit of one.

Until a friend or relative has applied a particular proverb to your own life, or until you’ve watched him apply the proverb to his own life, it has no power to sway you.

There’s a Yoruba proverb which roughly translates into, ‘What turns its face to one person has turned its back on the other.’ It’s always made me think about how deeply subjective our experience of the world can be.

My first tattoo is a French proverb, and it says, ‘Dream your life, live your dreams.’

I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.

I believe there’s no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.

The study of folklore is largely the study of particular folklore genres: myth, folktale, legend, ballad, proverb, riddle, superstition, etc.

Art to me means lot of things – images and words. I may be no artist myself, but I recognise the pleasure you get from a new proverb or a new painting. It puts you in a particular frame of mind. Visually I like art, philosophically I like art.

A proverb is much matter distilled into few words.

Which form of proverb do you prefer Better late than never, or Better never than late?