A Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

week see if you would be HAPPY for a week take a wife.

weep see LAUGH and the world laughs with you.

weeper see FINDERS keepers (losers weepers).

welcome see when all FRUIT fails, welcome haws.

WELL begun is half done

Cf. PLATO Laws 753 e , proverbially it is
said that the beginning is the half of every task; HORACE Epistles I. ii. 40 dimidium facti qui
coepit habet, he who has made a beginning, has half done.

c 1415 Middle English Sermons (EETS) 148 The wise man seth that halfe he hath

don that wel begynneth is werke. 1542 N. UDALL Erasmus’ Apophthegms 1. 16 Laertius

ascrybeth to hym [Socrates] this saiyng also: to haue well begoone is a thyng halfe dooen.

1616 J. WITHALS Dict. (rev. ed.) 555 Well begun, is halfe done. 1703 P. A. MOTTEUX

Don Quixote IV. xli. Let me.. get.. ready for our Journey. .. ‘Twill be soon done, and A

Business once begun, you know, is half ended. 1883 C. S. BURNE Shropshire Folklore

273 They also account it very unlucky to give trust [credit] for the first article sold. ‘Well

begun is half done,’ is evidently their principle. 1907 A. MACLAREN Acts I. 176 Satan

spoils many a well-begun work. ..Well begun is half—but only half—ended. 1981 P.

O‘DONNELL Xanadu Talisman iv. The nannie-like proverbs .. Well begun is half done,

The early bird catches the worm. beginnings and endings

All’s WELL that ends well

Cf. c 1250 Proverbs of Hending in Anglia (1881) IV. 182 Wel is him that wel ende mai.

1381 in J. R. Lumby Chronicon Henrici Knighton (1895) II. 139 If the ende be wele,

than is alle wele. c 1530 R. HILL Commonplace Book (EETS) 110 ‘All ys well that

endyth well,’ said the gud wyff. 1602 SHAKESPEARE All’s Well that ends Well IV. iv.

35 All’s Well That Ends Well. Still the fine’s [end’s] the crown. 1836 MARRYAT

Midshipman Easy I. vi. I had got rid of the farmer,.. bull, and the bees—all’s well that

ends well. 1979 G. HAMMOND Dead Game xviii. My rank’s been confirmed. So all’s

well that ends well. 2002 Washington Post 25 June C12 Thanks for telling us the rest of