Arabic proverbs

Let the one-eyed woman and her farmland go away.

Historically, the saying rejects marrying a woman for the sake of her land or wealth. It treats her property as insufficient reason to overlook a characteristic the speaker finds unacceptable.

A child is pleased with so little, you miser!

On its surface the saying mocks a miserly mother who lets her small child fuss and cry when a tiny treat or trifle would calm it at once. It ridicules stinginess so extreme that it refuses even the cheapest gesture of comfort. The jab targets one woman's conduct, not women or mothers generally.

Stature may match stature, but the sky stands high, and no one can reach up to it.

Two people can share the same height, figure, and outward appearance, yet that resemblance says nothing about their true worth. Physical likeness is easy to see, while standing and merit are of another order entirely and cannot be judged by matching bodies.

I will not come myself; I will send my son to offer congratulations.

Traditionally, the saying is used critically of someone who avoids a group but, when courtesy requires contact, sends another person in their place. It treats delegated goodwill as an inadequate substitute for the personal visit expected to maintain friendly relations.

Every eye has its brow standing guard.

The image comes from the body. The eyebrow sits just above the eye, and the saying treats it as a natural shield that takes the blow or deflects harm before it reaches the delicate eye below.

In the end, only what is truly yours will serve you.

The saying claims that dependable benefit comes only from one's own holdings. The calf born to your own cow is a figurative picture of personal property in general: what is yours can be drawn on, while anything held by someone else, or merely promised, cannot be counted on in the same way.

Whatever you plant, you can pull up again, except a person: put one in place, and he will pull you up.

Anything a grower puts in the ground stays under the grower's control and can be pulled out whenever the grower likes. A person is different. If you set someone up in a job, a post, or a livelihood, that person may later scheme to remove you from your own place.

Those of one stock always find their way to each other.

People who spring from the same origin tend to find one another and stay together. Shared descent, upbringing, or underlying nature works like a hidden thread, pulling kindred people into easy agreement and companionship without any deliberate effort. The key word also means veins and, figuratively, lineage, so the image is of shared stock, not plant roots alone.

The one who is eager to help you divorce is the one who won't have to pay what it costs.

The saying pictures a man urged toward divorce by someone who bears none of the deferred dowry and maintenance the husband owes. Here al-haqq means that sum, not truth or justice, and yihutt means paying it out. Advice is easy when someone else bears the cost; if the adviser had to contribute, enthusiasm would likely turn to hesitation.

With people who see clearly, complaining is out of place.

The saying holds that spelling out one's troubles to discerning people is unnecessary and even unseemly, a matter of bad form rather than grave disgrace. Those with real insight can already read a person's condition, so a detailed complaint adds nothing. It does not condemn complaining in general, only belabouring it before those who already see.

What cannot be made into a drum may still work as a frame drum.

The proverb says that material unsuited to one particular use need not be discarded altogether. What cannot serve as a drum may still be fit for a ṭār, a type of frame drum.

Better to lose a thousand fruits than the tree itself.

This traditional saying consoles a mother after the death of a child or children by comparing children to fruit and the mother to the plant that remains rooted. Its force is to stress that, however grievous the loss, the mother herself survives.

Whatever stray gets loose, they bring it to Abu Nabit's door.

The saying describes a person who becomes the usual stopping place for anyone idle or aimless. Like stray animals always led to the same yard, people with no work or purpose seem to end up at this one person's door. Abu Nabit is a stock name, not any real or known individual.

Whatever the celebration, he walks away with his piece of the cake.

The saying describes a person who turns up wherever there is something to be gained and always leaves with a share. The wedding stands for any event or venture, and the round loaf stands for the small benefit such a person manages to collect each time.

Someone without protective jealousy is no better than a donkey.

Traditionally, the proverb condemns someone seen as lacking ghayra—a jealous, protective sense of honor. It treats that absence as stupidity or insensibility and uses a degrading comparison with donkeys, making its force a harsh personal insult.

Enjoy what your own field gives you, and let go of what you missed.

The saying urges a person to make the most of what is actually in hand, pictured as the produce of one's own plot of cucumbers, gourds, or similar crops, rather than dwelling on gains or chances that have already slipped away.

Your feet carry you wherever your heart is drawn.

The saying holds that people's movements betray their attachments. Without much deliberate choice, a person keeps drifting, slowly and almost involuntarily, toward the places and company that warm them, so habitual visits reveal where their affection truly lies.

If the dog ever took a hard look at itself, it wouldn't go flapping its ears so proudly.

The saying pictures a dog flicking its ears in self-satisfied display, and suggests that this vanity would vanish if the animal honestly took stock of what it is worth. The pride exists only because the dog has never measured itself against reality.

There was little enough to her already, and then the cold came and left nothing at all.

The image begins with a woman described as having almost nothing left, then presents the arrival of cold as a further blow that strips away what remained. The saying does not specify a particular illness or personal defect. Its force comes from adding another misfortune to an already wretched condition.

Better to be pressed by the grave than embraced by an enemy.

The saying is a deliberate exaggeration. It invokes the solemn religious belief that the grave presses upon the dead, and the speaker claims that this grip would be easier to bear than being held close by someone who wishes them harm. Death is pictured as the lesser burden, showing how strong the revulsion is.

If a person can eat even a raisin, they are not as unwell as they claim.

The saying dismisses a claim of illness or misfortune by treating even a small appetite as evidence that the person is not as afflicted as they say. It implies that someone able to eat has retained an ordinary sign of wellbeing.

Taking flight is half of being smart.

The saying counts running away, in the sense of fleeing rather than exercise or mere haste, as a large share of cleverness: getting clear of a risky, awkward or unpleasant situation is itself credited as a shrewd act, on a par with other kinds of quick-wittedness.

If it suits you, accept it; if it does not, direct your attention somewhere else.

The proverb separates what is agreeable from what is not. When circumstances are satisfactory, it advises being content with them rather than disturbing a situation that is already working.

Nothing tames an arrogant bully like going broke.

The proverb claims that financial ruin humbles a haughty, domineering bully more effectively than anything else. Just as a cord or pin set through a camel's nostril lets it be led and forced to obey, losing one's means makes the overbearing tyrant lower his head and submit.

All bustle and no benefit.

The saying sets a busy, restless person against the small amount of real good that comes of their efforts. Constant motion is treated as no guarantee of results; indeed, the more someone fusses and hurries, the less lasting benefit, abundance, or enduring good may follow from what they do.

He's like the hallūk weed in the bean field: no straw for fodder and no grain to harvest.

The saying likens a person to the hallūk, a harmful weed of the bean field whose exact botanical identity is uncertain. While it grows, it injures the crop it lives among, and once it dries it leaves neither fodder straw nor edible seed. It gives no return at any stage of its life.

Better our own barley than somebody else's wheat.

The saying expresses a preference for whatever is one's own, even when it is plainly of lesser quality: our barley rather than others' wheat. Barley, the cheaper, coarser grain, and wheat, the prized one, stand for humbler versus finer things, not literal farming, stressing that ownership outweighs superior value held by someone else.

Constant harshness tears love out by its roots.

Repeated unkindness gradually destroys affection. The key word means ill-treatment and harshness, not grief. One harsh act may be forgiven, but habitual cruelty reaches love's deepest roots, or veins, and severs them, until warmth between people fades as a natural consequence.

Don't treat badly someone whose face you must see every morning.

The saying advises courtesy toward anyone you are bound to see day after day; the dialect word for 'face' stands for the whole person. When daily contact cannot be avoided, harsh words or open hostility gain little and leave a strain you must carry into every later meeting.

A kind word wins people over.

Pleasant, agreeable words have a way of disarming a person. The Arabic verb names no object, but the one understood to yield is the hearer: where bluntness might harden someone's position, a good word bends it, so they let down their guard and give way instead of digging in.

We're dying of vanity, and we just can't help it.

The saying mocks a person whose pride in themselves has grown so large that it seems to rule them. The image of being killed is hyperbole: vanity has utterly overpowered them, an overwhelming condition rather than an occasional lapse in modesty, with no literal reference to death.

Better to sit on my own doorstep than among the people I love.

The saying ranks a person's own home above even the warmest company. Sitting at one's own doorstep, which stands for the home as a whole, is judged better than time among dear friends, because a private place brings rest and security and frees one from depending on others' hospitality.

Be wary in the very spot where you feel secure.

The saying urges vigilance precisely where a person feels most secure. Its colloquial word simply means 'place', the spot one counts as safe. A sense of safety relaxes attention, and that is exactly when unforeseen trouble can strike, so confidence should never become a reason to stop watching.

Thinking ill of others will land you in Hell.

The saying condemns thinking ill of others with a severe religious warning. Suspecting people of bad intentions, especially without grounds, is portrayed as a moral danger grave enough to lead a person to Hell. The image of Hell gives the warning its force rather than merely naming an ordinary setback.

The mangy goat will drink from nowhere but the very source of the spring.

The picture is of a goat suffering from mange that still makes its way to the very spot where the spring wells up and will drink only there. Despite its sorry condition, the animal goes straight to the source of the water.

If you are afraid of a monkey, it will climb onto your shoulders.

Openly showing fear can encourage others to treat a person with contempt or press against them more boldly. The proverb portrays timidity as something that may invite disrespect and make another party more daring.

Like hens that lay and groan with effort, all for the trader's gain.

The saying pictures hens pushing and groaning to produce eggs, only for those eggs to end up with the merchant who sells them. The bird bears the whole strain of laying, yet the profit goes entirely to someone else.

He built the feeding trough before he had even bought the cow.

The saying pictures someone who builds a feeding trough before owning the animal it is meant for. It targets work done too early, before the thing that would make that work worthwhile is actually in hand.

Soured milk will never turn fresh again.

Some changes run in one direction only. Once milk has naturally thickened and soured, nothing restores it to its earlier fresh state, so the image stands for any situation that has passed a point of no return and cannot be reversed.

Do not mock someone’s fault today; tomorrow you may face the same trouble yourself.

The saying warns against taunting or reproaching another person over a flaw, mistake, or misfortune. Circumstances can change quickly, and the critic may later experience the very condition used to shame someone else; it does not condemn every form of constructive criticism.

Whatever gets dropped, someone will pick it up.

In its everyday sense, the saying holds that whatever is offered will find someone who wants it. Fine things have their seekers, and so do shabby or inferior ones; no item, person, or opportunity is so lowly that it lacks a taker somewhere.

What the eye never sees, the heart never mourns.

Desire begins with sight. When the eye never meets something dazzling or enticing, no craving is awakened, so the heart has nothing to mourn when that thing is out of reach. Regret for a lost good depends on having first beheld it.

You can't turn a pig's ear into a silk bag.

Phrased in colloquial rather than Standard Arabic, the saying holds that what something is made from limits what it can become. A coarse, lowly starting material cannot be turned into an elegant, valuable product, however much skill or effort is spent on it.

A believer's heart shows him the way.

The saying credits an inner sense with knowing things before the facts are plain. Its image is a believer's heart acting as a guide or pointer, a sign that indicates the truth. The religious framing sets its tone, but it makes no doctrinal claim about who has true intuition.

However rotten the bone, it still falls to its own family.

The image is of a bone gone foul: no stranger will take it in, and only the household it came from will still claim it. A related variant speaks of spoiled meat instead, making the same point. Spoilage that drives outsiders away does not cut the tie of belonging.

Here comes a little mint sprig to make the party complete.

The saying mocks someone small and insignificant who joins a gathering as if his presence finally makes it whole. Mint here stands for something slight and easily overlooked: a single sprig adds almost nothing to a crowd, yet it struts in believing the company depended on its arrival.

The only real flaw in men is not having them around.

The proverb moves blame away from men as such. What truly deserves complaint, it suggests, is not any particular failing a man displays but the lack of men, meaning being deprived of them altogether. The real misfortune is placed in their loss rather than in their faults.

Away with prison, even one set in a garden.

The saying wishes confinement far off, even when it would take place somewhere delightful. It voices a wish, not a report that a prison has vanished. A garden suggests beauty, shade, and ease, yet putting a prison inside one does not change what it is. Being locked up remains unwelcome whatever charm surrounds it.

He has no part in the ṭūr, nor in the flour.

The saying denies a person any part in two paired things, the ṭūr (a word whose precise sense here is uncertain) and the flour, and in doing so sets him wholly outside the affair under discussion. The doubled 'neither... nor' stresses that he has no connection to any side of it.

Live off other people's bread, and you leave with no one sorry to see you go.

Someone who takes a living from others without contributing earns no claim on their loyalty or affection. The repeated بلاش ('for nothing') frames both the free food and the departure that follows as counting for nothing: no one grieves or asks what became of them.