Arabic proverbs

A man who tells his wife his secrets is in for endless misery and turmoil.

The proverb warns a man that confiding his private affairs to his wife will bring him lasting trouble. Once the secret leaves his keeping, he can expect prolonged suffering and a life thrown into confusion, because the matter is no longer under his control.

Being a buyer is how you learn to be a seller.

Standing on the buyer's side of a deal is treated as an apprenticeship in trade. Through bargaining over prices and inspecting goods, a person absorbs the tactics merchants use, so that later, when he sells, he already knows how such exchanges work.

A dog won't bite its own brother's ear.

The image is of one dog declining to bite another dog's ear, presented as a brother. Through it, the saying expresses the idea that beings sharing the same kind do not turn their teeth on one another.

As with the ruler's lashes, every blow that misses you beats the one that lands.

The saying pictures a flogging ordered by someone in authority. Some lashes strike the victim and some fall wide. Every stroke that misses is plainly preferable to one that lands, so any harm that passes a person by is better than harm that actually reaches them.

Everyone waits on the lucky man.

The saying observes that people readily attach themselves to the prosperous. When someone has money or standing, others line up to do them favors and run their errands, hoping for some benefit in return. Read this way, it is a sharp comment on flattery and on how service follows wealth rather than need.

Too much talk comes to nothing.

The saying holds that piling up words yields nothing. Long speeches, repeated claims, and endless explanation fail to bring the benefit the speaker hopes for, and they may even work against that speaker. Measured, brief speech is treated as the useful kind, while verbosity counts as wasted effort. The target is excess and idle talk, not speaking as such.

Be patient, Sittet, until you have the house to yourself.

The saying tells someone not to rush into a matter before the circumstances are ready. It urges patience until the moment is genuinely open for the person to proceed.

You gain nothing from Upper Egyptians, any more than a man clipping dogs gets wool.

The proverb claims that staying near or dealing with the Saʿāyda, Upper Egyptians, brings no profit, just as clipping a dog never yields fleece. The neutral regional name becomes a target of ridicule, paired with an image of inherently pointless labor, so any hoped-for return is presented as impossible.

He'll either scorch it or drown it in water.

The image is of a careless cook: one moment the fire is too high and the dish scorches, the next so much water goes in that it turns into thin broth. The second verb uses a colloquial sense of making food runny, not the standard Arabic sense of passing through or straying. Either way the dish is ruined.

It's not your own hide, so why not haul it through the thorns?

The saying captures the attitude of someone who readily causes suffering to others because none of that suffering ever reaches them. It points to how bold and careless people become once somebody else is the one bearing the consequences of what they do.

“Why make a public show of fighting me, only to seek a private reconciliation afterward?”

The saying rebukes someone who turns a disagreement into a spectacle before others, then tries to settle it quietly where no one can see. Its contrast between a conspicuous procession and a secluded alley stresses the unfairness of public hostility followed by private friendliness.

Bearing witness always comes with consequences.

To bear witness is never a neutral act. Once a person speaks in support of someone or against them, the statement sets outcomes in motion, and those outcomes do not stay with the person being judged. They also reach back to the one who testified.

Anything from Upper Egypt is fine, bar its menfolk and the wind.

The saying grants broad approval to everything that comes from Upper Egypt, then makes two exceptions: its men and the southern wind. These exceptions name particular points of objection rather than rejecting the region as a whole.

Your coldness is easier to take than your house standing empty of you.

The speaker compares two painful outcomes and accepts the lighter one. Being treated with coldness or turned away by someone hurts, but it is judged far more bearable than that person being gone altogether.

Joke too much and people stop respecting you.

The saying warns that a person who jokes too often gradually loses the dignity and regard others grant them. Humor is not condemned in itself. The point is that habitual levity makes people stop taking someone seriously, and that erodes their standing.

A stranger is blind, however clearly he can see.

The saying holds that a person away from familiar ground cannot see what is around them, however sharp their eyes or mind. Without local knowledge, even a capable outsider gropes like someone without sight. The point is unfamiliarity with a place, not any lack of intelligence in outsiders.

They asked her, "Are you really going to marry into a big household?" She replied, "With my tongue still mine, who could ever get the better of me?"

A bride is asked whether she is about to marry into a household of her husband's numerous relatives, where she will be outnumbered and ruled by her in-laws. She brushes the danger aside with a rhetorical question: so long as she keeps her sharp tongue, how could any crowd of relatives get the upper hand?

A feeble camel trails a long tether.

The picture is of a weak, thin she-camel that is tied with a long rope. The rope's length is not what matters here: it gives the animal no strength and does nothing to change its poor condition.

What business have you with that dangling thread?

Framed as a rhetorical question, the saying warns against involvement in an affair bound up with other affairs. The 'dangling thread' suggests something that hangs on, and depends on, other things. Such a matter tends to bring worry and wasted effort, so the speaker asks why anyone would take it on.

What we expected is exactly what happened.

The saying marks an expectation or estimate that proves correct: events unfold as someone had anticipated. It can convey rueful confirmation that a judgment has been borne out.

One sit-down after another, Saʿda, and the day is already gone.

The saying remarks on how quickly time escapes. One spell of sitting follows another, and before anyone notices, the whole day has slipped away. The speaker turns to a woman called Saʿda, a stock name rather than a real individual, as if sharing the surprise of finding the daylight already gone.

If you won't give anything, can't you at least offer a kind word?

The saying sets two kinds of kindness side by side: material generosity, the sense of إحسان here rather than its theological meaning, and gracious, comforting speech, which is what "tongue" stands for, not eloquence. Someone who will not give can still be warm. Withholding both fails an easy duty as well as a costly one.

The one who prepares before the appointed time will not be caught unready.

The saying praises foresight: preparing for an obligation before its deadline gives a person control when the moment arrives. Readiness prevents delay, confusion, and the risk of missing what must be done.

Anyone who eats honey must put up with bee stings.

The image rests on a simple fact: honey comes from bees, and anyone who reaches for it risks being stung. The saying makes enduring that pain the natural condition for tasting the sweetness, not an unfair extra burden.

Everything he has takes after him.

The saying claims that whatever belongs to a person carries his own stamp, especially his shortcomings. Someone of low quality tends to select things and associates of equally low quality, so his possessions end up mirroring him.

Save a sip for tomorrow.

The saying recommends keeping back part of what you have instead of exhausting it immediately. Here شربة means a single drink of water, not a dose of medicine. That sip left for the next day stands for any portion of income, food, or supplies set aside so future needs are not met with empty hands.

I care for you, and you repay me by pulling down my shelter.

The saying rebukes someone who answers kindness with harm. It contrasts protective, attentive care with an act that destroys the security and support of the person offering that care.

If my own eye is scarred over, I've no right to call someone else one-eyed.

The speaker pictures himself with a ruined eye covered by a hard, knob-like growth (the "button" here is not a garment button) and concludes he has no business taunting another person as one-eyed. A flaw you carry yourself takes away your right to mock it in others.

Only the empty tin makes a racket.

The saying rests on a simple physical observation: tap a hollow vessel made of thin sheet metal and it rings, while a full one gives back only a dull thud. The verb here means that hollow ringing, not a bang or explosion.

Money stolen from an endowment will bring the roof down on the thief.

The saying holds that wealth permanently dedicated as a religious or charitable endowment (waqf) carries a kind of danger. Anyone who seizes it for private use, instead of spending it on the purpose it was bound to, invites disaster upon himself and his household.

She let her own child cry and went to quiet the neighbor's boy.

The image is of a mother who ignores her own crying child and hurries off to comfort a neighbor's child. It pictures care and attention misplaced: energy goes outward to someone else while the person who most needs it, and who is one's own responsibility, is left alone.

The One who gave creatures mouths will also provide their sustenance.

The proverb expresses confidence that the Creator provides for created beings. It answers fear about livelihood by linking the ability to eat with the assurance that food and other necessities remain under divine care.

Never mind helping with the meal. I'd be happy if the radish could just digest itself.

The saying mocks misplaced hope. Radish was popularly believed to aid digestion, a folk notion drawn from the belching it causes, yet it sits heavily itself. The speaker gives up on any promised benefit and asks only that the supposed aid manage its own trouble, sparing everyone the extra discomfort it brings.

I'd rather never set foot in my family's house again than have them say, 'Here comes the one who's after something.'

A married woman who now keeps a house of her own vows she would sooner deny herself visits to the home she grew up in than walk in and hear them mutter that the one who wants something has turned up again. Her dignity matters more than the comfort of seeing her kin.

It turned out just as I'd pictured it.

A remark of satisfaction, offered when something arrives or happens in a form that fits what someone had privately wanted or turned over in their mind beforehand. The speaker signals that nothing fell short of the hope and that the outcome feels almost made to order.

Do not praise or criticize until a year and a half has passed.

The saying advises withholding both praise and criticism until enough time has passed for experience to reveal a sound basis for judgment. Early impressions are not treated as sufficient grounds for a firm evaluation.

Just like cats: they eat your food and then act as if they owe you nothing.

The saying condemns ingratitude. It describes people who enjoy what others give them and then deny the favor or turn away from the giver, as if no debt of thanks existed. The cat stands for a creature that eats from your hand yet shows no lasting attachment.

What can an envious person do against someone favored by fortune?

The saying expresses confidence that another person’s envy cannot, by itself, undo the good that has come to someone else. It presents well-being, success, or happiness as something granted or allotted and secure against a resentful observer’s ill will.

If one survives, one will discover who caused the harm.

The saying expresses confidence that survival eventually brings clarity. Here, “the head” stands for the person who remains alive: someone who endures a misfortune whose cause is unknown may later learn who was responsible.

The mouth is a fool.

This proverb says that a smile or laugh does not reliably reveal a person’s inner state. Someone who is sad or troubled may still be briefly amused, and that moment does not show that their distress has ended.

Sooner or later, it all rises to the rim of the kneading bowl.

The picture is drawn from bread-making. Dough left to rise in its kneading basin swells until it climbs to the rim, and there anyone can see that it has risen. The vessel's edge becomes the plain marker of a process that was quietly underway inside.

A kite vouching for a crow? Then both of them will fly away.

The saying ridicules a pledge in which one slippery party vouches for another. The kite here is the bird of prey. A guarantor is supposed to stay put and answer for the other person, but if both are free to take wing, the promise secures nothing at all.

A mistress and two maids, all to fry a couple of eggs.

The saying mocks a mismatch between effort and task: a mistress and two servant girls gather to do something as slight as frying just two eggs. The word for the servants can carry the historical sense of enslaved women; the image reflects an older household order and is not an endorsement of it.

There are no fans in hell.

The saying describes a task or situation as intensely difficult and exhausting, with no real prospect of comfort or relief while it lasts.

Better to accept defeat than to end the day as the winner.

The saying recommends yielding rather than prolonging a quarrel for the sake of triumph. It presents humility and self-restraint as preferable to the personal satisfaction of overcoming another person.

Clothes look right only on the people they belong to.

Every garment has a wearer it was meant for. On that person it looks natural and becoming, but borrowed by someone else, the same piece appears ill-fitting, odd, or even unsightly. Here the verb describes clothing sitting properly on a body, not someone being taken in by a trick. What flatters one body can embarrass another.

Call on people in the morning, not at night.

The saying advises anyone planning to call on others to go early in the day rather than after dark. Its two verbs, built from the words for morning and evening, point here to the timing of a visit, so a daytime call finds the household awake and ready to receive guests.

If you do me irreparable harm, no later apology can make me whole again.

The saying condemns an attempt to mend relations after an injury has caused permanent, irreversible loss. Once the essential damage is done, reconciliation cannot restore what was taken away.

He went to propose on his friend's behalf and came back married to her himself.

The picture is of a man sent to seek a woman's hand for someone else who ends up marrying her himself. The courtship scene is only a frame: service as a trusted go-between turns into taking the very prize he was meant to secure for another.

A kite won't drop baby chickens for people to pick up.

The proverb points out that some hopes are absurd from the start. A kite, the bird of prey rather than the toy, hunts and devours young chickens, so expecting it to drop them as gifts for people turns its nature upside down. The saying targets a person who waits for generosity where none could ever come.