- English translation
A human eye is never satisfied until the grave's earth fills it.
- Literal wording
Nothing fills the eye of the son of Adam except dust.
- Meaning and lesson
The proverb treats greed as a permanent human trait. However much a person gains, their gaze stays fixed on what they still lack, and the hunger never settles while they are alive.
Only death ends the craving. The dust is the earth of the grave, filling at burial the eye that wealth never could. The idea echoes a well-known Prophetic saying on human greed, though this wording is not a verbatim quotation of it.
- When it is used
Said when someone keeps wanting more despite already having plenty, or as a rueful remark on human acquisitiveness. It works as a wry rebuke or a philosophical sigh, but its blunt grave imagery can sound harsh when aimed at a particular person.
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- Colloquial Arabic
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How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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