To add fuel (oil) to the fire (flames)

To be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth

To be head over ears in debt

To be head over heels in love

To beat the air

To build a fire under oneself

To call a spade a spade

To carry coals to Newcastle

To cast pearls before swine

To come off with a whole skin

To come off with flying colours

To come out dry

To come out with clean hands

To cook a hare before catching him

To cry with one eye and laugh with the other

To cut one’s throat with a feather

To cut your coat according to your cloth

To draw (pull) in one’s horns

To draw water in a sieve

To drop a bucket into an empty well

To err is human

To err is human; to forgive is divine

To fiddle while Rome is burning

To fight with one’s own shadow

To find a mare’s nest

To fish in troubled waters

To fit like a glove

To flog a dead horse

To go for wool and come home shorn

To go through fire and water (through thick and thin)

To have a finger in the pie

To hit the nail on the head

To kill two birds with one stone

To know everything is to know nothing

To know on which side one’s bread is buttered

To lay by for a rainy day

To live from hand to mouth

To lock the stable-door after the horse is stolen

To look for a needle in a haystack

To love somebody (something) as the devil loves holy water

To make a mountain out of a molehill

To make both ends meet

To measure other people’s corn by one’s own bushel

To pay one back in one’s own coin

To plough the sand

To pour water into a sieve

To pull the chestnuts out of the fire for somebody

To put a spoke in somebody’s wheel

To roll in money

To run with the hare and hunt with the hounds