Patient waiting

Given enough time, one may achieve what one hopes for.

The saying expresses confidence that time can make hopes attainable. What cannot be achieved today may still be reached later, provided a person lives long enough to see another opportunity.

News for a penny? Wait a day and you'll hear it for free.

The saying sets up a tiny exchange: a call offers a piece of news for a jadid, a small coin of the period (not the adjective 'new'), and the answer is a shrug. Why pay today for something that will be circulating freely by tomorrow? Patience gets the same information at no cost.

"Barber, tell me, is my hair still dark or turning gray?" He answered, "Any second now it'll fall on you, and you can see for yourself."

A customer in the barber's chair, respectfully calling the older man 'uncle,' asks whether his hair is black or white, meaning dark or graying. The barber says the cut hair is about to drop onto him, where he can look for himself. Asking is pointless when the answer is moments away and plain to see.

The true yield becomes clear only after the grain has been threshed.

Do not judge a harvest by what appears at reaping. The image is of threshing discs: the real yield may emerge only after the crop has been fully processed, so anxiety about apparent scarcity can be premature.

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.

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.

In the time it takes for the palm stalks to be cut, God may do whatever He wills.

The saying points to the gap between dreading something and actually facing it. Since the feared event still lies some way off, the interval leaves room for an unexpected turn, and God may alter the situation entirely before it arrives.

Patience never costs you anything.

The saying holds that staying calm and unhurried never puts a person at a disadvantage. Taking one's time, enduring delays, and holding back irritation are presented as choices that carry no real cost, even when they feel slow or frustrating. Read as 'does not lose' or 'does not cause loss,' the verb yields the same sense.

When told to crow, the rooster replied that each thing is best when its hour arrives.

The proverb answers a demand made at the wrong moment. Like the rooster, which crows at its own appointed hour, usually dawn, and not on command, a person may put off acting early because the action only fits when its time has come. The objection is to the timing, not the task.

All things come in their own good time.

The saying calms someone who is anxious or losing hope. It suggests that every outcome has its own fitting moment, so a present delay is not a final defeat. What has not arrived yet may still come once its proper time is reached.

One month, then a wee one, and the next is hardly anything; it'll be here before you know it.

The saying treats a stretch of time that feels long as if it were nothing much: a month, then a 'little' month, then a short one. The months are figurative, not a real count, and the diminutive is chosen to rhyme rather than to name a shorter month. It insists the awaited thing lies closer than it seems.

Every delay carries some hidden good.

The saying teaches patience toward setbacks in timing. When something we want arrives late or is pushed back, the proverb invites us to suspect that the wait itself may be working in our favor, steering events toward a better result than haste would have produced.

Do not celebrate someone’s departure until you see who comes to replace them.

Do not treat a departure as good news before you know what will take its place. The replacement may prove no better, or even worse.

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.

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.

Something pressed into development before its proper time is likely to lose quality. Although the wording can also be read literally of fruit grown under artificial pressure, its figurative image suggests that haste or premature completion can produce an outward result lacking expected richness.

Some things attain their proper value only after an unpromising stage of decline or delay. The saying draws on the traditional idea that medlars become edible only after pronounced softening, turning apparent spoilage into a condition of readiness.

Do not destroy or consume something at its beginning if you hope to receive the fuller benefit it may yield later. Immediate gratification can remove the very possibility of a better future result.

Grief may become less acute as time passes. It frames emotional recovery as gradual, rather than something that can always be forced or completed immediately.

Understanding how the world works, including its changing conditions and tendencies, takes considerable time. Quick impressions are not enough to reveal its deeper patterns.

Over time, people, plans, and beliefs are tested by experience. What seems strong, true, or reliable at first may prove otherwise when it faces changing circumstances.

Events, actions, and aims have fitting moments. The saying counsels recognition that not every purpose can be pursued effectively at any chosen time.

Do not form a final opinion of a thing while it is still being made, repaired, or otherwise incomplete. Its present rough state may reveal little about the quality, usefulness, or appearance it will have when finished.

Small efforts, repeated consistently, can accomplish what a single attempt cannot. The proverb presents persistence as a force that works gradually rather than all at once.

The proverb advises against expressing distress over a setback that has not happened. A feared injury is not yet an actual one.

The proverb warns that satisfying a want before it becomes a need can leave a person without what they require later. Its image of thirst makes the cost of poor timing immediate and concrete.