"Still waters run deep," for example

Usage examples of adage.

There was a legal adage that hard cases made for bad law, but the books could not anticipate all the things that people did.

This epidemic of rustic rabbis, with their simplistic philosophy and folksy adages, gives the Jewish religious establishment and the Roman occupiers a rare opportunity for cooperation, for the priests resent the devotion and enthusiasm that the uneducated Wad lavishes on these fanatics, and the Romans see them as foci for social unrest in a population already dangerously unstable.

Even so doth the tollman at the well-frequented turn-pike on the Wellbraehead, sitting at his ease in his own dwelling, gather more receipt of custom, than if, moving forth upon the road, he were to require a contribution from each person whom he chanced to meet in his journey, when, according to the vulgar adage, he might possibly be greeted with more kicks than halfpence.

And Cap Cicero, famous alpinist and guide, was an inflexible bully who lived by the adage My way or no way.

An old adage crossed his mind: a swarm of bees in May is worth a ton of hay.

It is a well-known Holmesian adage that, once you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, no matter how unlikely it might appear, must be the truth.

Remember the adage: We want products that never come back and customers that always come back!

More than one lusty warrior-in-training was knocked atumbling by the boy, and the bigger they were, to paraphrase the shaggy adage, the farther they tumbled.

I had rather be cared for in a fever by the best-taught among you than by the renowned Fernelius or the illustrious Boerhaave, could they come back to us from that better world where there are no physicians needed, and, if the old adage can be trusted, not many within call.

Charley verified the adage about little pitchers, I am sure, for she heard of more sayings and doings in a day than would have come to my ears in a month.

It was terrible to be thus haunted by a voice: to have advice, commands, remonstrance, all sorts of saws and adages still poured upon him, and no visible wife.

He has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if there be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff, to be prepared for the spit.

Likewise, an old adage or proverb may be used to prove a point, but many adages are probably not true, e.

Foremost among them was the most basic of adages related to the art of war: The best defense is always a good offense.

All the Basque of Haute Soule believe they have special genetic gifts for meteorological prognostication based upon their mountain heritage and the many folk adages devoted to reading weather signs.