- English translation
We've made our peace with misery, but misery won't make peace with us.
- Literal wording
We were content with worry, and worry is not content with us.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying describes a person who has stopped fighting their hardship and simply learned to live with it, yet the hardship keeps pressing harder. Resignation, which ought to bring at least some quiet, earns nothing. Misery, here covering worry, grief, and hardship at once, is treated as a personified partner that refuses the truce offered to it.
Its force lies in the sense of having reached the lowest point of bad luck. When even accepting suffering fails to settle matters, the speaker feels there is nothing worse left to endure. The image recalls a victim's surrender that still does not satisfy the one doing the harm.
- When it is used
Fits moments when someone has already lowered their expectations and endured hardship, only to be hit again. It works as a bitter personal lament, not a cheerful quip, or as sympathy toward a friend facing repeated setbacks. It suits informal conversation rather than formal comfort.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: We've made our peace with misery, but misery won't make peace with us.