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The one who is wary stays out of harm's way.

The saying holds that a person who stays wary of danger is the one who comes through unharmed. Its past-tense verbs state a general rule, not a specific event, and the 'fear' meant is closer to circumspection: a protective instinct that keeps someone from rushing into trouble or ignoring warning signs.

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.

Measure before you cut, and make yourself worthy before you wear it.

The saying urges careful assessment before any irreversible step. Just as a tailor checks the measurements before the scissors touch the cloth, a person should weigh a matter thoroughly before committing to it, since a hasty cut cannot be undone.

Your life isn't something to throw away.

The saying treats a person's lifespan as something precious that should not be scattered or spent carelessly; it concerns throwing one's life away, not money or general thrift. It cautions against rushing into an undertaking that carries real danger, urging the listener to weigh the risk before acting.

The saying warns that acting too quickly brings trouble. It links haste with harmful consequences rather than with success.

The saying warns that entering marriage too quickly, without adequate thought, can lead to regret that lasts far longer than the rushed decision.

The saying warns that hurrying a task tends to cost more than it saves. Rushed work invites mistakes, and mistakes have to be paid for in spoiled material, wasted effort, extra expense or work that must be done again. It is stated as a general rule about what haste does, and its lesson is that taking enough care at the start is usually cheaper than repairing the results of a rush.

• Compare: Someone is tempted to rush a task where a mistake would cost more than the time saved.

When luck is on your side, a single hair will haul in what you want; when luck deserts you, even chains give way.

The unnamed subject is understood as fortune, or the way of the world, not a woman. When it is on your side, ambitious goals fall into place almost without effort, as though one fine strand were enough to bring a heavy prize home.

Keep piling it up; God will open the way.

The saying comforts someone whose goods or work seem to be piling up with no outlet. Its verb can picture heaping things up or shaping pounded meat for frying and sale; either image tells them not to fret, because God, the One who brings about the means, arranges how the stock will move.

Having nothing to wear is what teaches you to spin.

Someone with no clothes to wear has no choice but to learn how to spin yarn and make cloth. Here الغزل means spinning thread, not its other senses of love poetry or flirtation. Hardship becomes the teacher, pushing a person to master a craft they would otherwise never have attempted.

With them, a cat becomes a camel and fleas turn into grown men.

The saying mocks a habit of exaggeration. It imagines a household where a mere cat is talked up into a camel and pesky fleas are spoken of as grown men, so every trivial thing is inflated far beyond its real size.

Saying 'if only' never built anyone a house.

Wishing that things were otherwise achieves nothing by itself. A person may repeat 'if only' endlessly, voicing hope or regret, yet the words never turn into anything solid. Saying they have not built even one house underlines complete futility, with the house standing for any real gain that only effort can secure.

The privy cricket and the washroom clog have teamed up against us.

The saying mocks an alliance between two contemptible parties. A cricket that lives in the privy and a wooden clog worn in the washroom are both lowly, dirty things, and picturing them as companions conspiring together turns any partnership of the base into an object of ridicule. A variant names a broom instead of the cricket.

A mouse that runs about recklessly ends up as the cat's meal.

The saying warns that a person who flings himself headlong into every hazard, heedless of what may follow, practically offers himself up to harm. Just as a mouse that rashly exposes itself becomes the cat's prey, the reckless person invites the very misfortune that catches him.

You can't make tent pegs out of an okra stalk.

The saying points out that some things simply lack the substance a particular job demands. Its سجرة is a colloquial pronunciation of شجرة, meaning here the okra plant or stalk, not a large tree. An okra stalk is soft and hollow, so no effort will turn it into a peg firm enough to drive into the ground.

When you're at someone else's mercy, you play by their rules.

The saying holds that a person who has lost control of their situation is no longer free to act on preference. It concerns the one overpowered, not the victor. Weakness, defeat, or dependence imposes its own terms, and someone in that position may end up doing things they would never choose if they had any real alternative.

The thing you do not want today may be the thing you need later.

The saying warns against dismissing something merely because it seems unappealing or unnecessary at the moment. Circumstances can change, turning a rejected person, object, skill, or option into a useful necessity.

It came out of nowhere, as if it had been stashed away all along.

The saying describes something that suddenly becomes visible when it was not previously known to exist. The image is of an object concealed as if inside a jar, which then comes out into the open, so the focus falls on the sudden move from hidden to apparent.

Pull up a chair and sit tight; things will settle down on their own.

The saying recommends meeting trouble with composure. Instead of rushing about when misfortune arrives, one should figuratively sit down, stay put, and let events take their course, trusting that the disturbance will subside in time. It favors patience over frantic intervention, not neglect of duties that genuinely require action.

Everything that begins will eventually come to an end.

The saying pairs a start with a finish: anything that has come into being or been set in motion is matched by a point at which it stops. Neither half is presented as existing without the other.

A donkey with a full belly kicks its fodder around.

The saying describes a person whose good fortune has grown so large that they stop valuing it. Once their needs are more than met, they begin to squander, misuse, or treat lightly the very things that once sustained them, much as a sated animal carelessly scatters and wastes its feed.

When God loves someone and picks them out, their daily bread shows up right at their doorstep.

The proverb holds that a person enjoying God's affection and selection does not need to chase a living. Provision arrives at their own threshold, so what others labor for reaches them without toil, travel, or hardship.

What business have you with that dangling thread?

Framed as a rhetorical question, the saying warns against involvement in an affair bound up with other affairs. The 'dangling thread' suggests something that hangs on, and depends on, other things. Such a matter tends to bring worry and wasted effort, so the speaker asks why anyone would take it on.

A meeting by chance beats one made by plan.

The saying ranks an unplanned encounter above an arranged one; خير here works as a comparative meaning 'better than', not simply 'good' or 'blessing'. Meeting someone by chance carries a freshness and ease that a fixed appointment may lack, so the surprise itself becomes part of the pleasure of seeing them.

With horses so scarce, they took to saddling dogs.

The image is deliberately ridiculous. When proper mounts run out, people try to saddle dogs and ride them, a substitute that cannot do the job. The picture shows how far circumstances have fallen, since a shortage of the right means has pushed them to a laughable expedient.

You'll never make sturdy stakes out of reeds.

The saying holds that some things are simply the wrong stuff for a given job. Here الغاب means reed or cane, not forest, and the opening عُمْر means 'never': a hollow, flimsy reed will never become a sturdy peg, because it cannot bear the strain a stake must withstand.

You can tell the quality of anything by looking at it, except tobacco; that you only find out once it's burning in the pipe.

Most things can be sized up at a glance, with good and poor quality told apart by the eye alone. Tobacco is the exception: here دُخَّان means smoking tobacco, not smoke, and حَجَر is the pipe bowl, not a stone. Its worth stays hidden until packed into that bowl, lit, and tasted.

One little spark can burn down the whole neighborhood.

The saying warns against dismissing small beginnings. Its fire image is figurative: a tiny spark looks harmless, yet left alone it can set an entire residential quarter ablaze, so what starts as a trifle may grow into widespread harm.

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.

Let the world go to ruin, as long as my own head stays whole.

The saying voices a narrow, self-protective outlook: the speaker's own survival is all that matters. Let the wider world crumble, so long as their own head, meaning their very self rather than just their wits, remains whole and unharmed. Personal safety becomes the only measure of whether things are well.

Flies keep landing in the honey.

Said of someone who flings themselves eagerly and repeatedly at something they want. Just as flies are drawn back to honey time after time, the person described cannot keep away from whatever attracts them, and the stress falls on how often the eager rush recurs, not on a single moment of wanting.

The bran is on its feet while the finest flour lies sleeping.

The image comes from sifting flour. Bran, the husk and chaff sifted away and discarded as cheap, is pictured standing tall, while al-'alama, here meaning not 'sign' but the finest white flour, lies down as if asleep. The rhyming Arabic verbs 'rose' and 'slept' set the two halves against each other.

Life away from home is a teacher.

Living away from one's own people forces a person to grow. Without relatives or companions to lean on for advice, the newcomer must work things out personally, picking up practical skills and learning how to deal with others.

With time on his hands, the Devil sets about tearing up the dis.

This proverb is aimed at a wicked person who, once nothing else occupies him, turns his full energy toward evil and toward corrupting whatever he can reach. For such a person, free time simply becomes time devoted to wrongdoing.

Clay comes from clay, and a pinch of dough comes from the dough.

The saying holds that whatever is taken from a material keeps the nature of that material. A piece of clay is still clay, and a portion pulled from dough is still dough. One variant swaps the dough image for mud filler pressed into a wall's gaps, with the same point.

Acting too quickly can cause avoidable loss. That loss may create need, and need may then place damaging pressure on a household relationship.

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.

The saying dismisses people whose interests, pleasures, or concerns are judged trivial. It implies that a narrow or undemanding outlook finds satisfaction in matters the speaker considers insignificant.

The proverb presents a dry May followed by a wet June as a favorable sequence of weather. It predicts that this pattern will help things develop well.