Arabic proverbs

Live beside the lucky, and their luck will rub off on you.

The saying holds that good fortune spreads by proximity. Whoever settles close to a blessed or prosperous person is thought to catch some of that luck, as though happiness passed from one life to the next through simple nearness, and the neighbor ends up fortunate in the same way.

He went to bed one night and woke up to find himself a senior officer.

The image is of a man who lies down for the night and, on rising, discovers that he now holds a high military rank, the qaimmaqam, whose status no English rank name matches exactly. Nothing stands between the two moments: no stages, no waiting, only sleep followed by a transformed position.

No spell can affect the sea.

The proverb imagines the sea as so vast that magic cannot leave any effective mark on it. It portrays a person of great ambition as similarly beyond the reach of petty attempts to unsettle them.

Damn all partnerships, even just sharing lunch!

The saying calls down ruin on partnership itself, with the force of an exasperated curse rather than a neutral observation. Here shirk means a shared stake in worldly affairs, not the theological sense. Because shared undertakings so often end in disagreement, it holds that joint arrangements are best avoided, even something as minor as sharing a meal.

Asked when he reached the palace, he replies, “Yesterday afternoon.”

The saying points to someone whose access to prosperity, favor, or elevated rank is very recent. The brief interval implied by the reply emphasizes that this person has not yet had time to become firmly established in that position.

Let the unlucky man go into the skullcap business, and God will start making people with no heads.

The saying pokes fun at a person whose luck is so poor that the world itself seems to rearrange against him. If such a man went into business selling skullcaps, the small caps worn close on the head, the absurd result would be that heads stop existing, leaving his goods without buyers.

An oversized stone misses the target.

The saying warns that a plan or attack can fail when it is made too grand, heavy, or conspicuous. Its image is of a stone made so unwieldy that it can no longer be aimed accurately; force alone does not ensure success.

Like snakes, all of us go crawling along on our bellies, each chasing what feeds him.

The proverb compares people to snakes, which move by sliding along their bellies. In the same way, each person is said to move through life propelled by the belly, meaning the constant effort to secure food and a livelihood.

The person who is struck is not like the person counting the blows.

The person who suffers the blows feels their effect directly, unlike the person who only counts them. The proverb contrasts lived injury with an external reckoning of what has happened.

Were the camel ever to catch sight of its own hump, it would topple over and snap its neck.

The camel carries its hump everywhere yet never sees it. The proverb suggests that if a person could truly see their own defects, the sight would be so repugnant that they would collapse and die of disgust. The fatal fall is deliberate exaggeration; it does not describe any real danger in recognizing one's faults.

A year on the easier road is better than one day on the grueling one.

The saying favors a longer, more manageable course over a shorter one marked by hardship. It judges a journey or task less by distance or duration than by the effort, discomfort, and strain it imposes.

Were it not for the madman, the wise would never have tasted dates.

The saying pictures a palm tree whose fresh dates (balah) hang high and are dangerous to pick. Only the foolhardy one will climb up and bring them down, while the prudent stay safely on the ground, yet everyone ends up eating. Caution keeps people safe, but it does not bring in the harvest.

Get the master builder working beside you, even if he eats up your whole lunch.

When you take on serious work such as building your own house, bring in a properly trained, skilled builder rather than a mere helper, even if feeding and paying him seems to eat up all you have. The lunch stands for that whole cost, and his skill makes it worthwhile.

A trade at your fingertips keeps poverty away.

The saying presents a practical skill as protection against poverty. Someone who has mastered a trade possesses a means of earning that keeps want at bay, so the skill itself serves as a form of security.

An old man putting on coy airs is like a door rattling off its hinges.

The proverb mocks an elderly man who behaves coquettishly or acts spoiled, comparing his display to a door working loose at its joints. Instead of charm, his affected playfulness comes across as creaky, rattling and unsteady, a sign of wear rather than youth.

He rides along free of charge, yet makes passes at the skipper's wife.

The saying sketches a passenger whom a boat's skipper has allowed aboard without charge, and who answers that kindness by flirting with the skipper's wife. The picture is of the worst kind of return for a favor: the beneficiary turns against the very household that sheltered him.

He whipped up a storm out of still air.

The saying pictures someone conjuring a fierce wind, in the sailor's sense of a strong gale, out of perfectly still, windless air. The image rests on that contrast: a person creates trouble from nothing, turning a calm situation into a storm of contention.

Look all through your house before asking the neighbors.

Before suspecting or questioning other people, check the places under your own control carefully. What seems missing may still be nearby, overlooked in a corner rather than taken by someone else.

Just like the Jews' reading: two parts out of three are lies.

The proverb accuses someone of being mostly dishonest: whatever they say, the greater share is fabricated. It is aimed at a habitual liar whose statements cannot be trusted; the fraction 'two-thirds' is a rhetorical exaggeration meaning 'most of it,' stressing that falsehood outweighs truth.

Every mustache has its own scissors.

The saying holds that nothing stands without its proper counterpart: just as every mustache has a pair of scissors made to trim it, every thing or situation has whatever fits and serves it. The image is homely and grooming-related, which makes the point feel ordinary.

The baker and the inspector are in on it together.

The saying exposes a corrupt bond between a regulator and those he regulates. The muhtasib was a historical official who supervised markets, weights, and trade practices. A baker who pays him off can short his loaves or cheat on quality without fear, because the inspector, his ironic "partner," is an accomplice sharing the gain.

Better to stay at home in your little room than to make a marriage you will regret.

On its surface, the saying holds that a young woman is better off remaining at home, unmarried in her small chamber (the modest inner room of a rural house, not a treasury or cupboard), than entering a union that will later fill her with remorse. Staying single is presented as the safer of two unattractive outcomes.

Has the world ever stayed faithful to anyone, you fool?

The saying asks a rhetorical question about the world and its favors: for whom has it ever stayed? The pronoun هي stands for the world or worldly fortune, left unstated. The expected answer is no one, so the person addressed has no reason to think fortune will make an exception for him.

A wasp buzzed around a sharpening stone. “What do you want?” asked the stone. “To lick you,” replied the wasp. “But I wear down iron,” said the stone.

The saying warns against seeking trouble that will bring harm upon oneself. The wasp approaches something capable of wearing down iron, failing to recognize how vulnerable it is beside the object it proposes to lick.

The more you talk, the more you slip.

Talking at great length multiplies the chances of saying something wrong. The verb here does not mean that talk instructs anyone; heavy talk breeds mistakes, so the more words a person pours out, the more likely one will be inaccurate, tactless, or harmful.

The mistress's secrets stay locked in the chest, while the bondwoman's are aired in the marketplace.

The word for "thing" here means private matters or secrets, not a physical belonging. The mistress keeps hers locked away, unexposed. The bondwoman, a female slave, has hers spread through the marketplace, because her dignity was not thought worth protecting. The image draws on a hierarchy rooted in slavery, setting protected privacy against public exposure.

What he does has squandered the good of his name.

The saying fits someone whose character blends the commendable with the shameful. Whatever good attaches to that person, pictured here as their name, goes to waste because it arrives bundled with something unworthy that spoils the overall impression.

To hell with a golden basin if it's only there for me to throw up blood in.

The speaker curses a splendid object, wishing it gone; the opening verb is an imprecation, not an instruction to cut the basin. Vomiting blood into it signals grave illness or ruin, not a minor complaint, and the costly vessel does nothing to ease that suffering. Honor arriving together with such harm is worthless.

The craftsman shaped him, then dropped dead, so there will never be another like him.

On the surface, the saying praises a unique creation. The craftsman who turned it on his lathe finished the work, then tumbled over (a colloquial verb for rolling) and died. It is the turner, not his creation, who dies, so the pattern was lost and no second piece can be made. The person stands unmatched.

To everyone, their own snot tastes sweet on their lips.

The saying mocks self-indulgent judgment: people tend to approve of whatever comes from themselves, even things others would find repulsive. Its intentionally crude image is a person's own runny nose reaching the mouth and seeming sweet, a picture chosen to make blind self-regard look absurd.

Asked when Judgment Day would arrive, Juha answered, 'The day I die.'

The saying mocks a person whose sense of what matters begins and ends with himself. To Juha, the familiar comic figure of Arabic folk anecdotes, the Day of Resurrection, a collective end of the world, is simply the moment of his own death. Whatever might happen to everyone else afterward does not even register as a question worth considering.

You may know of someone, but without close association, you do not truly know them.

A person cannot be genuinely known merely by being recognized or identified. Close, continuing association is what allows one to understand that person’s character.

Wed Mishkah to Rima, since neither one is worth a thing.

The proverb sneers at a pairing of two people regarded as worthless. Mishkah and Rima serve as stand-in names for unremarkable people, not known individuals. Telling others to marry one nobody to another suggests neither partner brings value or dignity, and their easy agreement is mocked as shared lowliness rather than praised as compatibility.

Carrying young keeps a beast as well as any stable-hand.

The saying holds that when a farm animal or beast of burden is carrying young, the pregnancy itself does the work of a dedicated keeper. The beast grows sleek and well-fed, as though someone were giving it fodder and tending it.

Whoever cups a hand around their candle keeps its flame alive.

The saying pictures someone sheltering the small flame of a candle and reports that the candle then burned and gave light. Its plain message ties the act of guarding something delicate to a good result: what is protected is what goes on shining.

Picking at every little fault only wears you out.

A person who scrutinizes others closely and holds them to account for every perceived slip is pictured as taking on a burden that falls back on themselves. The one engaged in exacting faultfinding, rather than the person judged, ends up drained.

No matter how high a peasant climbs, his village tattoo still gives him away.

The proverb claims that someone born a peasant carries a permanent mark of that birth. Education, promotion, or refined manners may change his position, yet the daqqa, a tattoo once common among villagers, keeps announcing his origin. Here the tattoo stands for an indelible sign of rural roots, not for tattoos in general.

I went home to my father's place for some rest, but the wind and the gusts had already arrived ahead of me.

This is said of an unlucky person whose misfortune catches up with them wherever they go, even when all they want is a little rest. The father's house is pictured as a natural refuge, yet the air and wind are already there when the speaker arrives; they stand for misfortune taking the place first, not actual weather.

The one people envy today is the one they will someday comfort.

The saying observes that good fortune seldom lasts. Someone whose wealth, standing, or happiness draws envy today may lose it as time turns, and those who once envied them will later come to console them.

Better to lose your eyes than your good sense.

The saying weighs two kinds of loss against each other. Blindness is a real hardship, yet it does less damage than losing inner vision: the discernment, sound judgment, and moral awareness that let a person understand and know right from wrong, not mere cleverness. Clarity of mind and conscience is ranked above bodily senses.

If this year brings no good, place your hope in the next.

The saying counsels persistence after a hoped-for result fails to arrive. A missed opportunity, disappointing season, or unsuccessful effort need not end expectation; another time may offer a better outcome.

A nail won't pull free of its flesh, and blood never turns to water.

Kinship is a bond that cannot truly be cut. Just as a fingernail stays rooted in the flesh of the finger and cannot be torn away without pain, relatives remain joined to one another, however bitter their arguments become. The image concerns this bond, not injury or grooming.

Keep your face veiled and stay within your bounds, and you may go where you like.

Framed with feminine imperatives, the saying tells a woman to keep her face shielded and carry herself within her proper limits, never cheapening herself or overstepping. Here 'measure' means one's due bounds, not bodily stature. The covered cheek stands for guarding dignity and reputation.

A child's faults come from the family that raised him.

The saying traces a flaw in a young person back to the household that shaped him. It treats a child's shortcomings as inherited from his father or learned from the relatives and people around him, since a child tends to resemble his father and absorbs both the good and bad habits of his surroundings.

Once patience runs out, only the grave is left.

The speaker has endured for so long that patience no longer seems to lead anywhere. The only thing left on the far side of all that waiting is death itself, so the line marks the point where endurance stops feeling like a path toward relief. In Arabic, the words for patience and grave rhyme.

Good people don't keep score with each other.

Among people who are honest and generous, close bookkeeping is unnecessary. Here the reckoning is financial, not religious judgment. Each side trusts the other to be fair, so there is no need to count every coin, demand receipts, or argue over who owes what when it is time to settle up.

Take your remedy from Abdallah, and put your trust in God.

The proverb advises a sick person to accept, with an open and trusting heart, the cure offered by whoever treats them, while placing ultimate reliance on God. The name Abdallah, literally 'servant of God', stands for any healer and echoes the closing word 'God'.

Like a dog, he only gets bold and lively in his own spot.

The saying belittles a person of low standing whose energy, skill and daring show up only in his own place. He is likened to a dog that puts on a brave front solely at its hole, a demeaning comparison that strikes at his worth as well as his courage.

Write off a liar completely and you will miss a good deal of truth.

Someone who lies constantly cannot possibly lie about everything; some of what that person says will turn out to be accurate. Rejecting every word from such a speaker means throwing away the genuine information mixed in with the falsehoods.

The look isn't Mayy's, and the turns aren't hers either.

The saying rejects a supposed resemblance to Mayy, a woman's personal name here rather than a common noun, who serves as the model being measured against. The person being compared falls short on both points the proverb names. The overall look does not match, and neither do the turns, so the claimed likeness fails entirely.