ProverbHub

A reviewed archive of proverbs

Proverbs, in
their own words.

Explore sayings across languages. Read each original with an English translation, its meaning and when it is used. Where a relationship has been reviewed, see what the sayings share and where they differ.

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Effort and providence and English traditional proverbs have proverbs but no reviewed comparison yet.

ArabicPatience and delayed outcomes

دوا الدهر الصبر عليه

dawāʾ ad-dahr aṣ-ṣabr ʿalayh

The remedy for hard times is patience with them.

Meaning: VerifiedProverb detail

3475proverbs3languages7comparisonsLast reviewed 2026-10-01

Across languages

What a comparison looks like

Open this comparison
Facets: Semantic closeness, High; Use-case overlap, High; Metaphor overlap, Moderate; Alignment, Aligned; Historical direction, Not established; Evidence quality, Limited.
Near equivalentComparison review: VerifiedPatience and delayed outcomes
Someone faces a hardship they cannot remove by their own efforts, and the question is how to bear it.
  • English

    What cannot be cured must be endured.

  • Arabic

    دوا الدهر الصبر عليه

    dawāʾ ad-dahr aṣ-ṣabr ʿalayh

    The remedy for hard times is patience with them.

Why connected

Both sayings answer a difficulty that cannot be removed with the same counsel: bear it patiently. Each frames the difficulty in terms of a cure or remedy, and each makes endurance the response.

Where they differ

The English saying starts from what is missing: there is no cure, so the condition has to be endured. It applies to any condition, and said to someone in distress it can sound resigned or even dismissive. The Arabic saying turns the same thought around and calls patience itself the remedy, so endurance becomes a kind of treatment rather than what is left when treatment fails. It names hard times specifically rather than any condition. Neither record establishes present-day usage.

Overall coverage: Verified

Every required claim and relation in this set passed its recorded review path.

Behind the archive

How this is reviewed

  1. 01

    Two AI checks

    Data completeness and publication readiness are checked in separate runs. A user report triggers human review.

  2. 02

    Review per claim

    Wording, translation and current-usage claims are assessed separately, so a comparison is never made to look more certain than its reviewed parts.

  3. 03

    Difference is a result

    Where two sayings stop matching is shown as prominently as where they agree. No claims of universal wisdom.