Arabic proverbs

We have been burned front and back, and our enemy still has not had enough.

The image is of someone scorched on both the face and the nape, so that no side of them has escaped injury. Set against that complete damage is an adversary whose grudge remains unquenched, as though the harm already done counted for nothing in their eyes.

Rather than spend everything on one splendid dress, buy both a dress and something to cover your head.

The saying recommends prudent household management: choose purchases that meet several necessary needs rather than lavishing all available money on a single gratifying luxury.

Like a hen scratching the dirt, he finds his living right beneath his feet.

The saying describes a person whose livelihood seems to follow them. Wherever they go, the means to live turns up close at hand, so that getting by never appears to require reaching far beyond where they already stand.

A good well is continually depleted.

An inviting well is portrayed as running lower under continual use. The image highlights a paradox: a thing valued for what it provides may suffer loss precisely because people repeatedly turn to it.

Let your enemy see you well dressed rather than well fed.

The saying ranks what an enemy can see above what he cannot. A belly full of food is invisible to a hostile onlooker, but shabby clothing announces hardship and invites gloating. So the sensible person spends on looking well rather than eating well when an adversary is watching.

Every kind of work hurts them, except the work their throats do at mealtime.

This saying mocks people whose ailments surface only when effort is required. Ask them to help and they suddenly have sore backs, weariness, or some reason to hang back; set out a meal and they arrive first, untroubled. Their aches, the line implies, are convenient excuses rather than genuine suffering.

What you own is more dependable than what you borrow.

The image is of clothing worn on loan: however it looks, it fails to give the wearer real warmth. In the same way, anything borrowed is presented as yielding no genuine benefit to the person using it.

Even the carpenter is beaten when he hits a knot.

The proverb takes a craftsman at work: a carpenter can shape most wood easily, but a hard knot in the timber, the dense spot where a branch grew, resists his tools and halts the job. The image suggests that even practiced hands meet points where ordinary skill stops working.

When you are weak, complaining is the only weapon you have.

The saying observes that a person without strength, standing, or means cannot strike back at an opponent in any effective way. Lacking other resources, such a person falls back on voicing grievances aloud, and lamenting the wrong becomes the only form of resistance still within reach.

All that packing and unpacking, and for what? You set out riding a camel and came home riding a cat!

The saying mocks a person who throws great energy into a venture meant to lift them higher, only to end up lower than where they began. Its opening cries pretend to marvel at all the loading and unloading while ridiculing its pointlessness. The camel and the cat mark a fall in standing or fortune, not literal travel.

Plant 'if only,' water it with 'I wish,' and the fruit you reap is 'no use at all.'

The saying pictures regret as gardening. The phrases 'if it had been' and 'oh, I wish' serve as names for the seed and the water, and the tree bears a single crop, 'nothing comes of it.' Nursing such thoughts may feel like effort, but it yields nothing of value.

Whoever foots the bill is the one entitled to enjoy what it pays for.

The saying expresses the idea that the person who pays for something is entitled to its benefit or result. Its image is figurative, not limited to music or to a literal parent and child; payment gives a claim to the service, enjoyment, or outcome.

Moon, you blaze like the sun in the dead of night.

The saying addresses the full moon figuratively, picturing it so brilliant that its glow at midnight rivals daylight. It is not about astronomy; through this image it marks something as completely exposed, a matter that darkness or concealment cannot hide and that anyone who looks can recognize at once.

“He has barely two outfits, yet he still thinks he is the best person in town.”

The proverb ridicules a person who has very little yet parades himself as superior to everyone else. A tiny display of comfort or possession becomes, in his own mind, proof of exceptional status.

Keep company with your equals, and walk within your own limits.

The saying, opening with a command to walk alongside one's equal, urges a person to choose companions who are their peers, people of similar standing, temperament, or circumstances. Friendships and partnerships between equals tend to be easier and more balanced, sparing both sides the strain that comes from mismatched expectations or resources.

As fickle as a winter day; you can't rely on its fair weather.

A clear winter day can turn cold, windy or wet within hours, so its brightness is no promise of what comes next. The saying uses that unsettled sky as its picture: a pleasant spell in winter gives no assurance that it will last.

Even when a beautiful person grows thin and frail, they are no less than anyone else; a wilted rose still keeps its scent.

The first half says that a person admired for beauty is not disgraced when they grow thin or weak. Because they once surpassed others, the most that this decline can do is bring them level with everyone else, never below.

Meager provisions are worthless, and so is a Nile flood that arrives in Tut.

The saying sets two letdowns side by side: provisions that turn up in short supply, and a Nile flood that comes in the month of Tut, later than it should. In each case the hoped-for thing does appear, yet it falls short of what was wanted.

All that leaping about, and hardly anything caught.

The saying paints a picture of a hunter who bounds here and there yet comes home with almost nothing, contrasting a great deal of motion with a meager haul. The energy spent is plain to see, but it yields very little of value.

When the donkey-drivers fall out, the riders are in luck.

The image is of men who rent out donkeys falling into a squabble, not a literal fight to the throat, and then outdoing each other in cutting the fare. The riders profit from this feud without joining it, since every price cut lands in their pocket.

"Why does he keep the good stuff for his favorites?" "Everything comes at its proper price," he replied.

The saying answers a charge of favoritism, framed as a question and a retort. Someone is asked why they keep the good things, meaning items of nice quality, for a chosen circle, and the reply is that this is not personal bias. Those favored people simply pay what the goods are worth, so the better treatment follows.

Whoever digs sinks lower, and whoever builds keeps rising.

The saying contrasts two kinds of people. Here فاحر is a colloquial transposed form of حافر, "digger," not فاخر, "proud." The schemer who works to trap others is like a man digging a pit: he only goes downward, his deeds come to light, people repay him in kind, and malice never earns him standing.

Lay your egg right where you do your clucking.

The picture is of a hen, which tends to cackle noisily as laying time approaches. The saying, addressed to her in the feminine singular, tells her to produce the egg on the very spot where she has been making her noise, rather than troubling anyone else with it.

A wall with a buttress behind it won't buckle.

The image is of a wall braced by an outside prop or buttress. Because something presses against it, it never shows the patchy outward swelling that warns of collapse. Applied to people, whoever has dependable backing stays upright and does not give way, even when strain would otherwise break them.

Like a fish that touches the hook only with its tail.

The saying pictures a fish that approaches fishing hooks hung on a line only with its tail, never its mouth, so the barb finds nothing to catch and the fish stays free. If every fish behaved this way, no angler would ever land one. The image celebrates instinctive wariness that keeps a creature out of reach of any snare.

Suffering like lamp oil, with water underneath and flame on top.

The saying pictures a traditional lamp in which oil floats on water while the wick burns at its surface, so the oil is caught between water below and flame above. It describes a person surrounded by misfortune with no safe direction left, where escaping one threat means meeting the other: drowning or burning alike.

Everyone has the sleep caked over their own eyes.

Every person carries flaws that sit so close to them that they cannot see them. The image is the whitish crust that gathers in the inner corners of the eyes, not tears or dust: something unclean that is one's own, noticed by others, yet lying right where one's own sight is blocked.

His money lets him talk down even to his own father.

Wealth can give a person enough social power to behave arrogantly even toward those who would ordinarily command respect. The image of speaking from a height denotes condescension, not a physical location.

Deep affection tends to grow out of an old feud.

Bitter conflict is not necessarily the end of a relationship. People who once clashed hard may later discover a bond stronger than that of those who simply got along, as if the heat of the quarrel fed the warmth that came afterward.

Watching alone will not keep you safe.

The saying warns that vigilance by itself is not enough. Seeing a danger, or keeping an eye on something, cannot replace measures that actually prevent loss or harm.

Whoever sets himself up as judge among children ends up hanging himself.

Settling quarrels among youngsters is a thankless, exhausting job. Their disputes never end, each side keeps pleading its case, and whoever steps in as arbiter is so worn down by their nagging that he becomes the real casualty. The hanging is comic, half-joking exaggeration for exasperation, not a literal reference to suicide.

A pretty cage won't fill a bird's stomach.

The image is simple. However beautifully a cage is painted or ornamented, the decoration does nothing for the hungry creature inside. A bird needs seed and water, and no amount of attractive bars or colors can take the place of actual nourishment.

The God who looks after us here looks after us there as well.

The saying holds that God's care does not stay at home when a person leaves. Here "Lord" means God as sustainer and protector, not a human master. The one who provides for and guards people at home is equally present in distant or unknown places, so departure need not mean losing that support.

Even repeated knocking is preferable to a greeting that takes people by surprise.

The saying favors announcing oneself before entering rather than arriving abruptly, even with a courteous greeting. Knocking may cause a little disturbance, but it alerts those inside and lets them preserve their privacy.

As coarse and blind as a rat in the privy.

The saying targets a man who is coarse and sullen, someone whose heavy manner and scowling face make him disagreeable. It does this by comparing him to a rat that lives in a toilet, an image chosen to belittle and to attach something filthy and contemptible to the person being described.

"May disaster take you, woman!" he said. "Then it lands on your head, man," she answered.

The proverb exposes the folly of wishing harm on someone whose troubles you will end up carrying. The husband's words are a curse, not a report, and the wife's retort turns them back on him: in the household the proverb assumes, where a husband bears his wife's misfortunes, any disaster that befalls her becomes his burden.

Before you go to war, play it gentle and keep foul words off your tongue; creep along under the riverbank like a boat until the wind is in your favor.

Before opening hostilities against an adversary, keep your intentions hidden. Treat the person gently, show no enmity, and refrain from speaking ill of them, because premature open hostility exposes you before you have the strength or circumstances to prevail.

Fine clothes and public display cannot make someone forget the lowly life they came from.

The saying contrasts lavish treatment and ceremonial display with memories of a humble, degraded past. It maintains that a person who rises in standing still remembers the condition from which they came.

You drum my praises, and I'll pipe yours.

The saying pictures a drummer and a reed-pipe player accompanying each other, and describes a pact of mutual public praise. One person asks the other to sing their praises in public and promises equal acclaim in return. It concerns trading praise to build reputation, not exchanging favors in general.

They set up the mangers before there were any cows to fill them.

The saying mocks people who arrange everything for an outcome that has not yet arrived. Readying the mangers where livestock feed, with no cattle in sight, shows eagerness outrunning reality, as if the expected occupants were certain to turn up.

A hopeless customer is always either too early or too late.

The image is a poor, clueless shopper who never arrives at the right moment. Calling him 'tar' is an insult meaning worthless or wretched, not a literal reference to pitch. Either he shows up before the shop has opened or set out its wares, or he comes so late that the choicest goods are gone.

Every room has its payment.

The proverb holds that nothing is without worth. Whatever one points to, it carries a value of its own, and the saying asks the listener to recognize that value rather than overlook or dismiss it.

Duck your head, and the trouble passes over you.

The saying recommends yielding quietly when trouble strikes. The unnamed "it" is best read as a hardship or blow of fortune, not a person or object. Rather than resisting head-on, one who keeps low and endures will find that it moves on and ends without lasting harm.

She had the cumin stocked before she was even pregnant, and the baby named Ma'mūn before he was born.

The saying mocks premature preparation. A woman who stocks cumin before she has even conceived, and settles on her son's name before any birth, has jumped past every uncertain step. The cumin stands for the provisions a pregnant woman is expected to need, which makes stocking it beforehand absurd. The expected result is treated as already secure.

You admire the lad and all his finery, but tell me: has he eaten today, or is he still going hungry?

The proverb warns against judging someone's circumstances by how well they are dressed or groomed. A handsome, carefully adorned young man may look prosperous, yet he might not have eaten a single bite today. Outward polish says little about what is happening at home or in the purse.

If you lack family support, form ties with good people through marriage.

The saying advises a person without close relatives or a dependable clan to build supportive bonds by marrying into an honorable, compatible family. Marriage is presented not only as a private union but also as a way of gaining belonging and protection.

Let a careless woman know the house is hers, and she will either clean it herself or pay to have it cleaned.

People tend to devote energy, care, and resources to what they regard as their own. A sense of ownership can turn an otherwise neglectful person into someone who takes responsibility.

A fine mare saves her rider when trouble comes.

The image is a thoroughbred mare, the unstated subject of the saying, whose speed carries her rider out of danger. Here the word for 'good' means a fine, well-bred mare, not a generous person as in ordinary speech. A mare of good stock outruns pursuers, and her master is rescued.

Even dogs leap onto a wall that stands too low.

The image is a wall built so low that even stray dogs can jump onto it without effort. The proverb applies this to a person who looks weak, unprotected, or easy to disregard. Such a person becomes a target, and even the meanest and least worthy people feel free to push them around.

He's out looking for a funeral just so he can beat his cheeks to his heart's content.

The saying pictures a person so eager to perform grief that he goes hunting for a funeral, any funeral, just to have a stage for dramatically slapping his own cheeks. The death matters little to him; what draws him is the chance to put on the display.