Arabic proverbs

Better to be famous than to be rich.

The proverb ranks renown above riches. Having one's name known and spoken of widely is treated as the more desirable possession, while an abundance of money is placed second.

Giving birth is not what makes a woman lucky; being happy is.

The saying draws a line between the event of childbirth and real good fortune. Becoming a mother does not by itself make a woman lucky; what counts is the happiness her children actually bring into her life.

You who are sitting comfortably, may you be kept safe from the trouble that is on its way.

The saying is a wish of protection directed at people who are already present and at ease. It asks that they be shielded from whatever harm a particular approaching party is expected to bring. The arrival is treated as a likely source of trouble before anything has actually happened.

She rose from the very grave to carry out the lot written for her.

The saying insists that whatever has been decreed for a person will come to pass, and that the person is pushed toward it with no real choice. It exaggerates this to make inevitability vivid: not even death can stop the destined course, since the woman climbs out of her tomb to complete it.

Like vermin that swarm onto the sick.

The saying draws on a familiar farmyard image: a parasite that infests poultry and livestock and clings most heavily to a creature that is already ailing, draining it further. The sick host cannot shake the pests off, so its weakness invites still more harm.

Things are flowing the way they used to again.

The saying pictures water that had stopped or strayed finding its familiar channels again. It marks the moment when something that was interrupted resumes its usual flow, and the normal order of things takes hold once more. The image is figurative; the saying is not a remark about actual water or irrigation.

When the spears start striking, you see who is the true warrior and who is the coward.

Courage cannot be judged from talk or appearance in calm times. Only when blows are actually exchanged does it become clear who stands firm and who shrinks away; the proverb's horseman stands for any brave fighter, set against the coward. The moment of real trial is the one reliable measure.

Half the town isn't good enough for me, so who on earth would think I'm good enough?

The saying mocks a person who looks down on a large share of the people around them as not good enough, while being plain or unappealing themselves. One verb covers both being pleased and pleasing others, so the closing question turns the speaker's pickiness back on them: such a person is unlikely to win anyone's admiration.

Nothing suits him: not the finest thing, not even fasting in Rajab.

The saying sketches a person who cannot be satisfied. Here al-ʿajab means a marvel, an admirable thing, rather than the feeling of astonishment: show them something remarkable and they shrug. Offer something widely regarded as good, even a pious act done freely, and they still object. The fault lies in their temperament, not in what is offered.

If something is bound to be lost, it is better for it to fall to a lion than to a dog.

When property taken without right cannot be regained, the proverb offers bitter consolation: the loss remains painful, but it is presented as less humiliating if the eventual holder is regarded as honorable rather than contemptible.

The one who governs you stands against you: disobey him and he will do you injustice.

The saying treats whoever holds power over you as a potential opponent rather than a protector. Defying that person is expected to bring injustice and harm upon the one who refuses.

The cheers go to Hanna, but it's Mikhail who pays.

The saying pictures a wedding where the festive cry "shobash" rings out for one man as guests' cash gifts are gathered, while another man actually hands over the money. The celebrated person contributes nothing and the real giver goes unnoticed.

Both baker and market inspector.

The phrase sets a baker beside a muhtasib, the market official whose job was to oversee weights and prices. One natural reading takes the two titles as describing a single person, so that the seller and his would-be supervisor are the same, though the wording itself only names the two roles side by side.

If a dog bites me, I cannot bite it back; if a low person abuses me, I cannot answer with abuse.

The proverb pairs two kinds of attacker: an animal that wounds with its teeth and a contemptible person who wounds with words. In each case the speaker says he lacks the very weapon the attacker uses, so he has no way of striking back in the same fashion.

Half the world belongs to the beggar.

The beggar is pictured as owning half the world because he is never tied to one spot. He wanders from one place to the next and collects something wherever he stops, so the territory he covers becomes, in effect, his. 'Half the world' is hyperbole for wide reach, not literal wealth.

Hobble your animal and you keep half of it; tie it fast and you keep it whole.

The image sets two ways of securing a beast against each other. Hobbling its legs counts as only half a safeguard, while tying it fast at its feeding trough makes it safe altogether. A partial precaution leaves you only partly protected, and full security comes from taking the more thorough measure.

The man with empty pockets has nothing left to fear.

A person who owns nothing is beyond the reach of anyone who might take something from him. With no wealth to confiscate and nothing that can be claimed, he has no reason to worry. Being in God's keeping here means plain protection and security, not a reward or divine favor earned by poverty.

A bug has a hundred young, yet complains that it has too few children.

The saying mocks someone who laments having too little despite already possessing an abundance. It portrays the complaint as exaggerated, contrasting an alleged lack with the plenty that is already visible.

Once his belly is full, a man says that daily bread is God's business.

The saying exposes how easy it is to sound pious and relaxed about livelihood once one's own hunger has been settled. A person who has eaten well this morning can afford to declare that sustenance lies in God's hands, because for today he has nothing left to chase.

We showed them how to beg, and now they reach the doors before we do.

The saying laments being outdone by the very people one helped. Having passed on a skill or a means of earning, the teacher finds the students reaching the same doors first, the households where alms are sought, competing for the same limited goodwill.

Every trouble in town finds its way to my heart and rests there.

The speaker complains that sorrow keeps finding them. Whatever grief or trouble exists anywhere in the town seems to travel to their heart and lean upon it, as if the heart were the one support every burden seeks out.

All our dear ones are here; nobody is missing.

It marks the completion of a gathering: the whole group has come together, so there is nobody left to wait for. It can convey satisfaction at seeing friends, relatives, or companions reunited.

When people asked Juha whether his stepmother loved him, he shot back: 'Why, has she lost her mind?'

The joke turns on the reply of Juha, a stock comic figure of folk anecdotes: asked whether his father's wife, his stepmother, loves him, he treats the idea as proof she must have gone mad. It is a punchline, not a personal statement.

Strutting about flexing one's might, with not a single seed to sow.

Whoever has no seed has no harvest coming, no matter how loudly they talk. The farming image is figurative: it pictures someone moving among people to display power and plenty while lacking the one essential that could turn that display into something real.

Two blows to the head are painful.

Read at face value, the saying observes that being struck on the head twice brings pain, and its image is built on repetition: the hurt is tied to blows that come more than once. Taking the blows as recurring trouble or misfortune is a plausible extension of the image, but it remains an interpretation rather than a settled sense.

You can't mow what you never sowed.

The saying holds that every result depends on something placed beforehand. Just as there is no growth to cut, such as fodder or greens, unless seed was first scattered by hand, no outcome springs from emptiness; whoever wants a return must first provide the material or effort that produces it.

Just wait—when it is your children’s turn, we will see what they are like.

This saying rebukes someone who habitually disparages or speaks ill of other people’s children. It warns them not to be smug: their own children or offspring may one day be judged just as harshly.

Crafted the way a master would make it for his own son.

The saying praises an object or piece of work that is flawlessly made. Here المعلم means the master of a trade or workshop, not a schoolteacher. It pictures such a craftsman making something for his own child, when he would naturally give his finest effort and leave nothing careless or half-finished.

I gave him a lift behind me on my mount, and he helped himself to what was in my saddlebag.

The proverb describes kindness repaid with theft. Out of pity, a traveler offers someone a seat on the animal behind him. That closeness lets the passenger slip a hand into the saddlebag, the two-pocket bag slung over the mount for carrying belongings. The favor itself enables the betrayal by placing the guest within reach of everything the host carries.

Even a single grain can tip the scales.

The saying holds that nothing is truly negligible. A single grain, tiny as it is, still adds weight when placed on a scale, so even the smallest act, contribution, or detail has some real effect on the overall result.

Like a scorpion: one sting and you're in the grave.

The saying likens a person to a scorpion whose single strike is pictured, hyperbolically, as leading straight to burial. The point is that this person's capacity to hurt others is extreme and the damage leaves no room for repair; it makes no literal claim about scorpion stings.

If you can't be pretty, be charming.

Addressed in the feminine but applied to any plain-looking person, the saying holds that charm can stand in for beauty. Someone whose appearance draws no one toward them is urged to compensate by becoming lively, teasing and even flirtatious, so that warmth and wit do the work a pretty face cannot.

They found the beggar woman a husband to keep her in comfort, but she tucked a bite of food out of sight and went right on calling, 'Charity, my lady, charity!'

The saying pictures a beggar who is married off so that a husband can provide for her, yet she tucks her food into a wall recess and keeps reciting the beggar's customary plea for alms. It mocks people whose low habits outlast the very circumstances that once forced those habits on them.

He can't tell a scornful 'pfft' from a word of praise to God.

The saying mocks a person so foolish and uninformed that they cannot separate 'tozz', a rude, scornful interjection for something worthless, from 'subhan Allah', a devout phrase of praise to God. If someone cannot tell those two extremes apart, the implication is that they lack even the most basic judgment.

May God take the life of anyone who plans to burn the wheat threshing floors before the harvest.

The proverb says that a person who intends grave harm will be taken by God before achieving it. It frames death as divine punishment for malicious intent and as protection for those threatened by the intended harm.

You who trip your way here in the dark, come back in daylight and take a good look.

The saying pokes at someone who keeps stumbling through repeated obstacles and danger to reach something they prize. The night is figurative, not advice about when to travel: stumbling in the dark suggests both the hardship they accept and the poor visibility that lets the goal seem grander than it really is.

A secret stays safe between two; let a third in and it is ruined.

This colloquial Arabic saying holds that a confidence stays safe only while just two people share it. Once a third person learns it, the secret is spoiled, meaning exposed or no longer safe, and likely to spread, so its safety shrinks with every added listener.

For the one who lies awake the night drags on; for the sleeper it passes in the blink of an eye.

How long a stretch of time feels, not how long it actually is, depends on the state of the one living through it. A person kept awake counts every hour and finds the dark endless, while someone asleep notices nothing and finds the whole night gone in an instant.

Only the one who made a gain has good words for the market.

The saying observes that people judge things by how those things have treated them. A trader who came home with a profit will speak warmly of the market, while one who lost money will have nothing kind to say about the very same place.

It's only your missing tail holding you back, tailless one.

The saying punctures a pretense of restraint. Someone claims, or appears, to be choosing not to take part in something, but the speaker insists the true cause is simple incapacity: the person lacks the means, reach, or strength to do it at all, so their abstention earns no credit.

Money you never had to work for is money you won't miss when you waste it.

Wealth that arrives without effort carries little emotional weight for its holder. Because the person never labored to gain it, they feel neither real sorrow at losing it nor reluctance to part with it, and that lack of attachment tends to make them careless and extravagant with it.

Someone who already knows needs no telling.

The saying holds that a person who already understands a situation does not need to have it explained. Literally, the knower is not "made to know," an echo of a single root. Their grasp of what is intended makes a direct question or a full account unnecessary.

Night is short only for those who sleep through it.

The saying points out that how long a night feels depends on the person living through it. For a sleeper, the hours vanish unnoticed. For someone kept awake by pain, worry, work, or waiting, the same darkness drags on and seems to have no end.

Better his fire than someone else's paradise.

The saying ranks one particular person, referred to as "him," above anyone else in the strongest possible terms. Whatever he gives, even something pictured as fire, is chosen over whatever another could give, even something pictured as paradise. The wording itself does not fix who the speaker is.

The barber opens his shop, and his very first customer is bald.

The saying describes someone whose bad luck appears at the very start of an undertaking. A barber opens his shop, and his first job of the day, traditionally an omen for the day's trade, is a head with no hair to cut. The opening that should set the tone for success turns out to be empty.

"How did you come to own all these flocks?" "My Lord provided them."

In one reading, a man who keeps herds and has grown wealthy is challenged about how he came to have so much. His reply attributes all of it to God's generosity toward him.

He carried water in a sieve.

A sieve is full of holes, so no one could ever lift water with one. By claiming that someone did exactly that, the saying credits them with achieving the impossible through cleverness, craft, and a knack for finding a way where none seemed to exist.

You'll know the end of the world has come when water pours from the walls and light shines along a string.

The saying lists two impossible-sounding wonders as omens of the Last Day: drinking water that comes out of a wall, as from a tap rather than from the masonry itself, and seeing light glow inside a thread or string. To its first hearers these images marked the far edge of imagination, things only the world's end could bring.

The thing you do not want today may be the thing you need later.

The saying warns against dismissing something merely because it seems unappealing or unnecessary at the moment. Circumstances can change, turning a rejected person, object, skill, or option into a useful necessity.

For someone with no clothes, no day is harder than the day garments are being sewn.

The saying captures how deprivation stings most sharply when its remedy is on display. A poor person without proper clothing may bear his lack quietly, but the day he sees others having fresh garments stitched reminds him painfully of his own condition. Seeing what one needs in other hands stirs the memory of want.