- English translation
Put off a quarrel until tomorrow, and by then it will have blown over.
- Literal wording
Trouble, if it stays the night, passes.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying claims that anger and quarrels rarely survive a night's delay; the trouble it names is a flare of temper or a dispute between people, not wickedness in a moral sense. A clash that feels pressing and bitter in the moment usually softens once the people involved separate, rest, and return to it the next day with cooler heads.
It also offers a practical remedy. Holding off on a confrontation is presented as one of the most reliable ways to defuse it. Instead of answering a provocation immediately, one waits until morning, expecting tempers to settle and the dispute to lose much of its sting.
- When it is used
Use it to calm someone who wants to settle an everyday dispute right now, suggesting the argument wait until the next day so a night's pause cools anger. It is not advice to overlook serious wrongdoing or lasting injustice.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: Put off a quarrel until tomorrow, and by then it will have blown over.