- English translation
Set your load down before exhaustion sets in, and take it up again before rest grows too comfortable.
- Literal wording
Put down before you get tired, and lift before you rest.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying teaches pacing through the image of carrying a load: set it down to rest while strength remains. Pushing on until fatigue takes over can injure the body or leave a person too spent to finish at all. The image may apply to figurative burdens too.
The second half, about lifting the load again, guards against the opposite danger. A break that drags on grows pleasant and habit-forming, and the energy to return fades. The advice recommends balance, not idleness: a pause long enough to restore you but short enough that ease never takes hold.
- When it is used
Suitable as practical counsel to someone facing sustained effort, such as hauling, a long project or extended study. It encourages pausing while strength remains and resuming promptly, not quitting or avoiding effort. It works best as friendly, experienced advice rather than as criticism.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: Set your load down before exhaustion sets in, and take it up again before rest grows too comfortable.