Proverbs about people do something a plain sentence struggles with: they let you pass judgement without sounding like you are passing judgement. “A leopard cannot change its spots” is a harsh verdict delivered as folk wisdom, and that is exactly why it survives — the speaker gets to be shrewd rather than unkind. The three levels move from the outside in, from what someone looks like, to what they keep doing, to what it will cost them, and several of the sayings here are worth knowing precisely because they are so often quoted wrongly.
12 proverbs about appearances and what they hide — each with its meaning and an example sentence.
12 proverbs that warn — about hasty judgement, easy assumptions and what follows.