«سِلِّمِةِ الْعِزِّ عُوجَهْ مَا تِطْلَعْهَا إِلَّا كُل مَوْعُودَهْ»

The saying pictures honor, prosperity and comfortable standing, not fame alone, as the top of a crooked, awkward ladder that is hard to scale. Reaching that height is not a matter of trying harder. Only the woman whom fate has marked out for it, by divine decree, manages to climb; the climber is grammatically feminine.

Its deeper point is that fortune and elevated status are allotted rather than seized. Success comes to whoever it was written for, and striving without that destiny will not carry a person up the twisted rungs, however determined she may be.

Fits moments when someone remarks on a woman's rise to comfort or high standing, crediting it to destiny rather than effort. It can also gently explain why others who strove for the same position did not reach it.