- English translation
Some get to eat the dates, while others just get hit with the stones.
- Literal wording
People eat the dates, and people get pelted with their pits.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying contrasts two groups around the same fruit. One group enjoys the sweet flesh of the dates, while the other receives only the hard stones. The image of pits striking the unlucky is vivid, but the core point is unequal fortune, not a specific act of cruelty by the fortunate.
Underneath the image lies a view of life in which good and bad fortune are handed out unevenly. The proverb does not ask why one side tastes sweetness while the other absorbs the blows; it simply registers the gap as part of how the world works, leaving no suggestion that the imbalance will be corrected.
- When it is used
Use it to comment ruefully on unequal outcomes, such as when one person enjoys rewards while another gets only trouble from the same situation. It suits wry resignation or mild complaint, not formal argument.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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