- English translation
Tell a blind man that lamp oil has gone up, and he'll answer: "That's a treat I never needed anyway."
- Literal wording
They said to the blind man: "Oil has become expensive." He said: "A fruit that is done without."
- Meaning and lesson
A rise in the cost of something matters only to those who depend on it. The blind man has no use for a lit lamp, so dearer lamp oil leaves him untouched. To him it is a fruit already dispensed with, an optional extra rather than a necessity.
The saying carries a dry humor: one person's crisis is another's non-event. It can describe calm indifference to troubles outside one's own needs, or wryly suggest that lacking something can, oddly, protect a person from the costs that come with having it.
- When it is used
Say it, half in jest, when someone shrugs off news of a shortage or price rise because the item plays no part in their life. Because the joke turns on blindness, take care that applying it to a person does not come across as mockery of disability.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic; wry, humorous
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: Tell a blind man that lamp oil has gone up, and he'll answer: "That's a treat I never needed anyway."