Arabic proverbs

Good times show on a person, and hard times wear them down.

A person's circumstances leave their mark on how they look. Ease, kind treatment and contentment show outwardly, giving someone a healthy, cheerful appearance, so a person who is living well usually looks it. Here good means the fortune and treatment a person receives, not their own virtue.

Your own actions are what shape what happens to you.

A person's fortunes are shaped by their own conduct. Whatever comes back to someone, pleasant or painful, is presented as the product of what they themselves have done, so responsibility for one's lot rests with one's actions rather than with luck or other people.

A needle costing a few coppers can wear a donkey out.

The image is a large packing needle or prod, bought for a few copper coins, used as a goad. Jabbed again and again into a donkey, it keeps the animal hurrying until it is spent and can go no further. The tool costs almost nothing, yet the large beast is the one brought down.

Once your aunt and mine tied us together, but the aunts have parted, and so have we.

The saying describes a connection between two people that once held them together but has since been severed. The shared maternal aunts stand for whatever link used to join the pair, and their parting marks the moment that link dissolved, leaving nothing between them. The kinship is an image for any former bond, not necessarily a literal family split.

He's like a donkey that can't stop wanting to haul sacks.

The saying describes a person who goes looking for the very loads that wear them down. Like a beast of burden that seems to miss its big, heavy hauling sacks when they are lifted off, this person has grown so used to strain that they seek it out instead of avoiding it.

Keep your head among everyone else's, and if theirs must fall, let yours fall with them.

The saying warns against arrogance and self-elevation. Rather than lifting your head above other people's, keep it level with theirs and count yourself as one of the group, claiming no special standing.

Better one day lived with dignity than a whole year spent in disgrace.

The saying ranks dignity above length of life. A short stretch lived with honor, here spanning standing, strength and self-respect together, is worth more than a long one endured under humiliation. The day and the year are rhetorical proportions, not literal spans: the quality of a life matters more than its duration.

Hey, earth, I'm the only one walking on you!

The saying pictures a person addressing the whole earth and declaring that no one else stands on it except himself. This exaggeration captures extreme vanity: the speaker behaves as though every other person has vanished or simply does not count.

Do not leave your place unless you are forced out.

Counsels against abandoning one’s home, position, or work voluntarily merely because removal seems possible. Remain where you are rather than taking the step yourself, unless circumstances actually compel you to leave.

Someone in a rush is no camel driver.

This colloquial Arabic saying holds that some undertakings are slow by nature, and impatience only gets in the way. Driving camels is the image of such work: the animals keep their own steady pace, so a person in a rush is unsuited to the job. The point concerns the task's pace, not camels themselves.

While alive, they have only flies to eat; when dead, they cannot even obtain burial cloths.

The saying presents deprivation as unbroken: there is no proper food during life and no provision for burial after death. By joining these two needs, it depicts poverty that strips away both survival and dignity.

Like a cat, murmuring prayers while it pilfers.

The saying exposes people who display constant devotion, reciting and praising God at every turn, while quietly helping themselves to other people's money or property. The outward piety works as cover for dishonest gain.

It is wrong to hit someone who is already down.

The saying condemns cruelty toward someone who is already helpless. The "dead" is figurative and stands for anyone defeated, weak, or unable to fight back, not literally a corpse. Striking a corpse gains nothing, so attacking such a person is equally pointless and reflects badly on the attacker.

A foot that wanders is out either to steal or to bring shame.

The saying holds that aimless roaming, such as prowling about and drifting from place to place, rarely comes from honest motives. Someone constantly on the move without good reason is presumed to be heading toward wrongdoing, whether taking what is not theirs or doing something dishonorable.

How thrilled the freeloaders are when someone else's crop comes in!

The saying mocks lowly people who live off others (the plural here means dependents, not mourners or wailers) yet get excited about a gain that will never be theirs. The harvest goes to its rightful owners, so the idlers' cheering is empty, a show of interest in affairs where they have no stake.

He's putting on airs like a mouse puffed up over its qalīṭa.

The saying pictures a mouse, already a small creature, showing off something called its qalīṭa, whose exact physical nature is uncertain, as though it made the mouse important. The comic image exposes pride built on something that has no real worth or dignity.

Every master has his own way of doing things.

The image comes from Sufi life, where each sheikh, a master rather than simply an old man or chief, leads disciples along a distinctive path, or ṭarīqa. The word also means an ordinary way or method, so the proverb plays on both senses to say that variety in method is normal.

Your money doesn't tempt me, and your looks don't win me over.

The speaker explains why they feel no pull toward another person. That person has no riches to tempt them and no physical appeal to captivate them, though the word used can also suggest charm or pleasantness. With both denials, there is no reason to pursue or fawn over them, and the other side is left with nothing to offer.

Dark eyes cannot stand the smoke, and red lips cannot spin the flax.

Two pictures of delicate beauty are set against heavy chores, in halves ending in the rhyming words dukhkhān (smoke) and kittān (flax). Lovely dark eyes would smart in the smoke of a cooking fire, and soft red lips would bleed from thread drawn across them while spinning flax by hand.

Everyone is a king in their own eyes.

The saying holds that every person carries a sense of worth and self-respect, ruling over an inner domain as a sultan rules a realm. However humble outward circumstances may be, each individual regards themselves with dignity and expects that dignity to be honored.

Ever since the day I was born, I have been set down in misery.

The speaker presents misfortune, meaning worry, grief and hardship together, as something they were placed into at birth, as if their parents had laid them down in trouble on the very first day. The image points to fate, not to any real fault of the parents, and the rhyming verbs give it the compact ring of a lament.

Once someone has given something up, they no longer bother with its small defects.

The proverb expresses the waning of care once a person has relinquished something. After deciding to part with it, they may no longer feel moved to correct its minor faults or attend to its condition.

You've taken your neighbor's spindle, but where on earth do you plan to spin with it?

The saying mocks anyone who wrongs the people right next to them. A neighbor's spindle, a tool for household spinning, is a familiar object, and the neighbor lives close enough to watch every move. The thief cannot use it without being recognized, so the theft defeats itself before bringing any benefit.

When the donkey belongs to someone else, you think it's made of iron.

The saying exposes a common failing: people spare what they own and exhaust what they merely borrow. Here عافية means strength or stamina, not health. Because the cost of damage falls on the owner, the user imagines another's donkey is made of iron and drives it without mercy or restraint.

A loss that teaches you something counts as profit.

The saying reframes a setback in the language of trade: a loss that leaves someone wiser about what went wrong is counted as profit rather than as a deficit. Whether money, opportunity, or effort was lost, the lesson pays back more than it cost. Only losses that teach nothing remain true losses.

A saint who is far away stops receiving vows.

People direct their devotion and offerings to whoever is close at hand. Here the sheikh is a saint who receives vows, not merely an old man or a leader. A saint whose shrine lies far away is gradually forgotten, and the vows once promised to him stop coming. Distance quietly ends the flow of attention and gifts.

Here comes the lamb to show its own father how to graze.

The picture reverses the expected order of instruction: a young lamb proposes to show its father how to graze, an activity the older animal has carried out every day of its life. The one with the least experience sets itself up as the teacher of the one with the most.

The quiet horse is the one whose tail gets plucked bare.

The saying observes that a creature too placid to kick or shy away becomes an easy target. People pluck the calm horse's tail hair by hair because it tolerates the abuse, and in the same way a patient, uncomplaining person invites others to take small, repeated liberties that steadily wear them down.

A guest who comes already fed burdens nothing but the floor beneath him.

A visitor who turns up having already had his evening meal costs the household nothing. Since the hosts need not prepare supper for him, the only burden he places anywhere is his own body resting on the floor where he sits or lies down for the night; the floor is literal, not a sign of humility.

As long as we're alive, we're bound to meet again.

The saying holds that people who have parted are destined to come together again, provided they both remain alive. Survival is the single condition it sets, so distance, time, or circumstance need not be treated as a permanent barrier to reunion.

"Prayer is better than sleep." "Well, I've tried them both."

The saying sets a confident claim that one thing beats another against the flat reply of someone who has personally tried both. The reply never names a winner; it only implies that lived experience pointed the other way, and that hint should stay implicit rather than spelled out.

A sturdy, handsome camel, but with a tattered old sandal hanging from its neck.

Picture a powerful, well-formed camel with a battered old sandal tied around its neck. Everything about the animal commands admiration, yet that one shabby object catches the eye and cheapens the whole sight, making a fine beast look faintly ridiculous.

Forever moaning about his poor eyes and going to bed hungry.

The proverb sketches a person who lists every hardship at once: weak eyes, an empty stomach at bedtime. The word for weak sight is clipped so it rhymes with the word for supper, and the paired grievances sound like a ready-made litany, suggesting complaint has become a reflex rather than a response to real misfortune.

You who grab it all will leave it all behind.

The saying speaks to a person who gathers up everything for themselves and holds it tightly. It sets that total possession against an equally total loss: whatever has been seized in full will, in time, be surrendered in full, because nothing a person owns goes with them into the grave.

Not everyone stands on the same level.

The saying holds that people do not all occupy the same social rank. Here مقامات means standings, not musical modes, a prose genre, or shrines. Some are seen as carrying great worth or position, others little, and each is thought to deserve treatment fitting that standing.

God has spared the naked man the bother of soap and laundry.

A person with no clothes has nothing to launder, so soap and washing are simply not their concern. The saying describes someone who has no need of a particular thing, because not having it also releases them from every chore and expense attached to it.

Whatever you send ahead of you is what you will find waiting in front of you.

At its core the saying holds that people meet the fruits of their own deeds. What someone puts forward now comes back to face them later, so good conduct brings good in return and wrongdoing brings harm in return.

By tomorrow, the snow will have melted and the meadow will be visible.

What is hidden or unclear may become visible in time, especially once the obstacles that conceal it have disappeared. The saying presents revelation as something that arrives with changing conditions rather than forced disclosure.

Umm Amir, go ahead and sift the flour.

The saying conveys that concealment is no longer possible: the facts have become plain, so there is little point in denying or disguising what has happened. It can amount to a blunt acceptance that the matter is already exposed.

Being in debt blackens a person's face with shame.

Owing money is presented as a source of open disgrace. A darkened face is a conventional Arabic picture of humiliation and lost standing, not a reference to skin color, so the saying treats the debtor as someone whose shame shows plainly to everyone around them.

He escaped the fire only for the crow to swallow him.

The saying pictures an unnamed escapee, commonly imagined as a small bird, struggling free of a blaze only to be bluntly gulped down whole by a crow waiting just beyond the flames. Surviving the first disaster turns out to be no rescue at all, because ruin arrives from another direction moments later.

Whenever I say, 'Lord, I repent,' the Devil replies, 'Just this one last time.'

The saying portrays a cycle of failed repentance. Each time the speaker resolves to turn back to God and abandon a bad habit, an inner tempter bargains: just this one turn, then repent. Here بس means 'only' and نوبة means a single occasion, not a fit or shift. The final exception renews itself endlessly.

The moment they step out of their shack, they give a fright to anyone who looks their way.

The proverb is a jeering portrait of people whose faces are thought to be so unsightly that their mere appearance gives a sudden jolt, not lasting fear, to anyone who happens to glance at them. It works as an exaggerated insult, not as a sincere warning about danger.

Pull too hard and it goes slack.

The proverb uses the image of a rope or string pulled or tightened until it slackens or gives way; the same verb can also suggest figurative strictness. Applying force past a sensible limit does not produce more control. It undermines the strength it was supposed to secure, so the effort ends up working against itself.

Know where you came from, and your end will weigh lightly on you.

A person who keeps in mind how life starts, small, dependent, and arising from nothing of its own making, finds the thought of its close less frightening. Awareness of one's humble origin softens the dread of death and makes the final passage seem a natural return.

A jeweler’s daughter longs for an ornament her father can readily make.

The saying concerns a person who desires something that can be obtained with little difficulty through someone close to them. It highlights the oddity of wanting as a distant wish what is already readily available through that person's position or ability.

Children raised on plenty come flooding toward their food.

The saying links lavish spending on children to their appetites. Youngsters who are constantly supplied with plenty come to expect abundance and throw themselves at food, growing used to eating greedily rather than moderately. Indulgence shapes the habit.

He is neither up nor down, a person who counts for nothing.

The saying labels a person as a complete nonentity: someone with no ambition and no practical use, who cannot be placed anywhere on a scale of worth. By denying the person either a high or a low position, it suggests they barely register at all.

Better half-blind than blind altogether.

The saying uses blindness as a figure for misfortune and ranks two misfortunes, favoring the smaller one. Losing part of something precious is painful, but losing all of it would be far worse, so a partial loss deserves to be accepted rather than bitterly resisted.

Only a person of low character makes light of a long friendship.

The saying holds that a bond built through long, close association and time shared together carries real weight, and that a person of decent character will not casually set it aside. Loyalty to those one has shared life with is treated as a mark of good upbringing and inner worth.