Arabic proverbs

Have patience with a loved one rather than lose them.

The saying advises bearing with a loved one’s faults or difficult behaviour rather than losing that person. It weighs two costs, the strain of putting up with someone and the loss of the relationship, and judges the first to be the smaller. Patience here is not praised for its own sake; it is the price paid to keep someone dear.

• Compare: Someone whose patience is being tried by another person's faults or provocations is deciding whether to put up with them or react.

The remedy for hard times is patience with them.

The saying names patience as the remedy for hard times. When circumstances turn against a person and cannot be changed quickly, bearing them is itself the treatment. It treats endurance as something active that helps, rather than as what is left when every remedy has failed, and its lesson is that steady patience is the right response to a hardship that cannot be shortened.

• Compare: Someone faces a hardship they cannot remove by their own efforts, and the question is how to bear it.
• Compare: Someone is deciding whether a delay is something to endure or something that will cost them the chance to act.

The one who hurries and the slow one meet at the ferry.

The saying sets two travellers side by side, one who hurries and one who takes their time, and has them meet at the ferry, where both must wait for the same crossing. The lesson is that hurrying gains nothing when the finish depends on something outside a person’s control. The hurried traveller arrives first but leaves no sooner, and has spent effort and strain for no advantage.

• Compare: Someone is hurrying a task or journey whose finish they do not fully control.

As fickle as the winds of Amshir, changing from one hour to the next.

The saying compares a person to Amshir, a month of the Coptic calendar known for gusty, unpredictable weather, when winds rise and fall from one day to the next. The colloquial word here means winds, not scents. Someone described this way cannot be counted on to keep the same mood, attitude, or stance for long.

Enjoy laughter while it comes easily, before it costs a fortune.

Enjoy the happiness available to you now rather than taking it for granted. The saying urges you to make the most of pleasant times, because changing circumstances may make the same enjoyment harder to find.

A woman of good breeding who bears hardship patiently ends up with a thriving home.

The proverb holds up as a model the honorable, sensible woman who bears her husband's offenses with patience. Here حرة means a freeborn or well-bred woman, not 'free' in the modern sense of independence. By staying rather than fleeing, she keeps her household standing and lets it prosper; عمرت refers to the home flourishing, not to long life.

A liar has to keep track of what they have said.

The saying warns that a false account can be difficult to sustain. A person who invents details may fail to remember them later, creating a conflict with an earlier version of the story.

Do not give away what your own household needs.

A person should first secure the necessities of their own home before making charitable gifts or other contributions. Generosity should not leave one’s dependants without essentials.

Go on, give me more, you whom I handpicked myself!

The saying is a sarcastic outcry from someone mistreated by the very person they singled out and championed. It calls the offender the pick of the speaker's own eye, a chosen favorite, not someone pure. The plea for more is bitter irony: the speaker protests harm already received, exposing a favorite who repays goodwill with injury.

The man who marries my lady becomes my master too.

The proverb treats a husband as sharing the rank of the woman he marries. If she holds authority over the speaker, he must receive the same deferential address; “lady” here reflects an older hierarchical sense, not a sexual one.

Turn your back on your old, trusted friend and you will end up lost.

The saying warns that deliberately turning away from a long-trusted companion, someone one could always lean on, leaves a person without bearings. The old tie gave direction and security. Once it is cut, confusion and helplessness follow, a bewildered straying rather than any literal journey.

He who fails to guard his harvest may end up borrowing bread.

The saying warns that possessions left without watchful care can be lost. It presents vigilance as a practical duty: neglecting what sustains you may leave you dependent on others for basic needs.

Walls have ears.

The saying warns that a conversation which feels private may not be. Someone could be standing just beyond a wall or partition, quietly listening, so words spoken in apparent seclusion can still reach unintended people.

The only thing stopping you from dancing is that your sleeves are too short.

The image is of someone who stays out of the dance, and the only reason given is that their sleeves are too short. Since a dancing outfit is expected to have long sleeves, the short sleeves stand for not having what the activity demands, so sitting out becomes a matter of being unequipped.

He prepares the remedy before He sends the trial.

The saying expresses the belief that when God sends a hardship, He has already prepared the means to soften it. The unstated subject is God, who both permits the trial and arranges relief; it is not secular advice to plan ahead. Misfortune comes with some measure of grace or provision.

He has missed out on half of what life has to offer.

The saying describes a person who has let something of great worth slip away. By likening the missed thing to half of one's lifetime, it turns an ordinary absence or lost chance into a loss of enormous size. Its wording keeps the colloquial نُص, which stands for the classical نصف (half).

For the rich man they strike up songs; for the poor man they ask, 'Now how would we ever get to his place?'

The proverb sets two scenes against each other. A rich person is greeted with songs and loud praise, while a poor person barely draws attention, and people ask how they could ever find the road to his door. The original rhymes 'they sang to him' with 'we go to him'; the shift from 'they' to 'we' is deliberate.

Even as it dies, the ox still longs to rub itself against the water-wheel post.

An ox that spends its days circling a water wheel has nothing to scratch against except one of the upright wooden posts flanking the machinery. Rubbing against it becomes so ingrained in that narrow routine that the animal still craves it at the very end of its life.

One said, "God damn whoever abuses others!" The other answered, "God damn whoever gives others reason to abuse him!"

The saying is staged as a short exchange. One voice condemns anyone who heaps abuse on others; a second voice answers with nearly the same words but turns the curse toward the person whose behavior pushed others into abusing him. The repeated frame makes the reversal sharp.

When luck is on your side, a single hair will haul in what you want; when luck deserts you, even chains give way.

The unnamed subject is understood as fortune, or the way of the world, not a woman. When it is on your side, ambitious goals fall into place almost without effort, as though one fine strand were enough to bring a heavy prize home.

A mother-in-law is a wasting fever, but a husband's sister is a scorpion whose sting no spell can cure.

This traditional complaint, voiced from a wife's perspective, ranks the trials she may face from her husband's female relatives. His mother is likened to a fever: a draining, persistent illness that wears a person down through constant discomfort rather than a single dramatic blow.

You may have your plans and I may have mine, but God’s will decides the outcome.

The saying contrasts human wishes with divine sovereignty. It reminds someone that neither side can fully control what happens, because the final result rests with God.

The troublemaker's life just goes on and on.

The saying observes that a miserable, troublesome person tends to live a long time. The key word can mean one who causes misery or one who suffers it; it leans toward the troublemaker, though a sense of wretchedness remains. It voices the bitter sense that those who cause most grief hang on, while others keep enduring them.

He plays lame on the street where everyone is lame.

The saying mocks someone who puts on a show of weakness to draw sympathy or aid, but does it in front of people who share the same disability or hardship. The words say only that he limps; the sense of faking comes from how the saying is applied.

Cloak, you've been exactly this way your whole life.

The speaker addresses a garment as if it were a person and remarks that it has always been just as it is now. The cloak is only a stand-in: the remark targets anyone, or any state of affairs, that has stayed fixed over time, with no change in character, behavior, or circumstances.

It all stays in the family; we had everything we needed among ourselves.

The saying pictures a self-contained household staple: the oil and the flour both belong to the same people. It describes an arrangement that stays inside one circle, where everything needed is already on hand, so nothing has to be brought in from outside.

We lost our friend and still failed to cure the sick man.

The saying sums up a double loss: someone gave up one good thing for the sake of another, and in the end held neither. The first clause means failing to keep a companion, not failing to stay. The relationship was spent, and the hoped-for result never arrived.

Seeing a monkey drink itself drunk at a filthy pool, they remarked, 'Fine clear wine suits no one but this well-groomed youth.'

The picture is deliberately absurd: foul seepage is hailed as pure wine, and a monkey is hailed as a finely dressed young man. The mock praise pairs one unlovely thing with another and declares the two a perfect match for each other.

It's plain for all to see: stay up all night, and you'll sleep the day away.

The saying presents something as so obvious it hardly needs stating. Staying awake through the night naturally leads to sleeping through the day. Calling this "written on cucumber leaves" marks it as plainly known, not an actual text or decree. The cucumber has no symbolic weight; the Arabic word khiyar was chosen to rhyme with nahar, daytime.

A cat is fondest of whoever chokes it.

The image is of a cat that clings to the person who grips it by the throat. Applied to people, it mocks a base or ignoble character who is drawn to whoever harms and humiliates him, showing devotion to the one who treats him worst. A negated variant, that the cat loves none but its strangler, sharpens the point.

At the meal, sit in the middle; when you sleep, take the edge.

The saying gives practical counsel on where to place yourself among a group. At a communal meal around a shared dish, take the middle seat: diners on the outer seats rise first to wash their hands, leaving you free to keep eating until you are completely full.

She's blind, she limps, and her elbows poke out from sheer thinness.

The saying sketches a figure who cannot see, walks with a limp, and is so wasted by thinness and sickness that the bones at her elbows jut out. Each added detail stacks another affliction onto the last, building a picture of total physical misfortune.

You won't value my kindness until you've had to deal with somebody else.

The speaker insists that the worth of their kindness, generosity and favors is invisible to the person receiving them, and will only become clear by contrast. Once the listener turns elsewhere and meets someone less generous, they will finally grasp how much they had been given.

Talk too much and people think less of you.

The proverb holds that a person who talks endlessly gradually loses the regard of others. Words that flow without restraint begin to seem cheap, and the speaker's dignity and authority shrink along with them.

Clothes that belong to another never sit right on you.

The image is of clothing cut for a different body: however fine it is, it hangs awkwardly on the wrong wearer. In the same way, wealth or adornment taken from others and worn for display never quite fits the person flaunting it, and onlookers sense the mismatch.

As welcome as one's own sins on Judgment Day

The saying likens a person to the wicked deeds someone has committed and must face at the final reckoning. Just as a sinner would dread meeting the record of their own misconduct, the people around this person dread meeting them, finding nothing welcome in the encounter.

Whatever he sets out to say, his case comes through plainly.

The image is of a person whose bit of wool glows, a small thing made bright and noticeable. Figuratively, it points to someone whose situation or concern comes clearly into view through each attempt he makes to state or convey it.

The one your heart settles on is your beloved, even should he be a Nubian slave.

Fondness follows where the heart leans and what it grows accustomed to, not who seems most deserving of it. A person becomes truly dear because you are drawn to them, and that attachment does not wait for good looks or standing to justify itself.

Open your lap for pomegranates, but tuck your clothes away when eating watermelon.

The proverb contrasts what is harmless with what is likely to cause damage. One need not take defensive measures against a person or thing known to be sound, whereas caution is sensible around what may bring trouble.

Why would a monkey worry that its face is dark?

The saying describes someone so unconcerned with disgrace that public blame or an embarrassing exposure no longer troubles them. It is directed at a person whose conduct has reached a point where shame has lost its restraining force.

Once the donkey died, the visits stopped.

The saying observes that something lasts only as long as the means that sustain it. Once the support, tool, or occasion behind an activity disappears, the activity itself ends, just as the visits ended when the animal that carried the visitor died. The Arabic rhymes ḥumāra (she-donkey) with ziyāra (visiting).

Like fish, they feed on their own kind.

The saying likens a quarrelling family to fish that prey on their own kind. It points to people bound by blood who, instead of protecting each other, cause one another pain through hurtful speech or damaging actions.

What stains something is no gain.

The proverb rejects the idea that every extra item makes a thing better. When an addition leaves something soiled or spoiled, it brings no benefit despite being attached to it. Its image is of soiling, not a mere change of color.

A person is like a bird, though not actually one.

Said in astonishment when a person moves from one place to another with striking speed, seeming to arrive almost as quickly as a bird.

How lightly the master goes: nothing in his hand, nothing tucked in the fold at his waist.

The picture is of a master who carries nothing at all: his hand is empty and so is the fold of cloth gathered at his waist, where small belongings could be tucked. Read approvingly, it describes someone with little to haul and nothing to delay him, able to move from place to place unhindered.

Since when does a kite drop the chicks it has caught?

The saying asks, as a rhetorical question, whether a kite has ever let go of a chick it has snatched. The expected answer is no. Kites seize chicks to eat them, so the image is about a predator holding on to its prey, not about generosity in general.

No matter how much is lost, plenty is still left.

The saying stresses that even after a noticeable loss, decline, or change, a great deal may remain. Its image of a large weight is figurative, shifting attention from what has gone to the abundance that endures.

What does not fit in Paradise may still have a use in Hell.

The proverb expresses the idea that an object or resource need not be useless merely because it is unsuitable for one particular purpose. What fails to serve in one setting may be put to use in another.

Well, look at you! Is that really your face, or has the moon come out?

Faced with someone who has turned up unexpectedly, the speaker feigns disbelief, asking whether the brightness in front of them is a familiar face or moonlight. The question is rhetorical: the mock confusion conveys delighted astonishment at the sudden arrival, not real doubt about who has come.

Patching cannot save a garment that has already worn away.

The saying dismisses a repair attempted after damage has become too extensive. It stresses that a small corrective measure cannot restore something whose condition has already deteriorated beyond its remaining strength.