Faint heart never won a fair lady

Origin of: Faint heart never won a fair lady

Faint heart never won a fair lady

This very old proverb meaning that boldness triumphs in affairs of the heart has been around in various forms since the 1500s and probably before. It first appears in the English translation of Cervantes’s Don Quixote in 1703. In Part III, Book X, the English translation gives us, “Remember the old saying, ‘Faint heart ne’er won fair lady.’”