Arabic proverbs
Proverbs from all Arabic speaking parts of the world.
Quotes
- Any wise enemy is better than an ignorant friend.
- Quoted in Carol Bardenstein, Translation and Transformation in Modern Arabic Literature:The Indigenous Assertions of Muḥammad 'Uthmān Jalāl, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005, p. 66.
- The food of the lion (causes) indigestion to the wolf.
- As quoted in Arabic Proverbs: Or, The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians by John Lewis Burckhardt and William Ouseley (1830).
- The remedy may be worse than the disease.
- English equivalent: The remedy is often worse than the disease; Burn not your house to rid it of the mouse.
- "Action taken to put something right is often more unpleasant or damaging than the original problem."
- Martin H. Manser (2007). The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs. Infobase Publishing. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-8160-6673-5.
- Atmaram Sadashiv, G. Jayakar (1900). Omani proverbs (Reimpresa ed.). Oleander Press. p. 69. ISBN 0906672120.
- He with no ears gets the earrings !
- Quoted in Bardenstein (2005), p. 66[specific citation needed]
- When suitors came asking for her hand, she played hard-to-get, when they all left her, she regretted it.
- Quoted in Bardenstein (2005), p. 66[specific citation needed]
- حبل الكذب قصير
- Translation: The rope of lying is short.
- English equivalent: A lie has short legs.
- "And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
The truth in masquerade." - Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XI, Stanza 37
- Katibah, Habib Ibrahim (1940). The new spirit in Arab lands. Published privately by the author. p. 121.
- كل ساقط له لاقط
- Translation: Every faller has a catcher.
- "Nowhere in the Quran does it say punish homosexuals. And historians have also never found any case of the Prophet Muhammad dealing with homosexuality."
- Daayiee Abdullah, as quoted in First Gay ‘Imam’ in USA Says ‘Quran Doesn’t Call for Punishment of Homosexuals’ (22 May 2015), Morocco World News
- حسن, دين، محمد علي (2011). الامثال الشعبية. دار المحجة البيضاء للطباعة والنشر والتوزيع،.
- لا يفل الحديد إلا الحديد
- Translation: Only iron strikes iron.
- English equivalent: Fight fire with fire.
- "Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."
- Assata Shakur, Assata: In Her Own Words (1998)
- al-Kitäb. 1946.
- الوقت كالسيف إن لم تقطعه قطعك
- Translation: Time is like a sword; if you don't cut it it'll cut you.
- "The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present"
- Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (1985)
- Manṣūr, ʻAbd al-Fattāḥ (1987). Mudhakkirāt kāìn maḥmūm.
Bedouin Proverbs
- الطول طول نخلة والعقل عقل سخلة
- Translation: [He has] The length of a palm tree but the brain of a goat.
- فوزية, دريع، (2008). الرجل الحيوان. منشورات الجمل،.
- إلى كثروا الرعيان ضاعت الغنم
- If the herders are a lot the sheep will get lost.
- English equivalent: Too many cooks spoiled the broth.
- "There may not be that natural connection and unity so essential to any production of merit."
- Porter, William Henry (1845). Proverbs: Arranged in Alphabetical Order .... Munroe and Company. p. 173.
- اللي مايعرف الصقر يشويه
- Translation: He who doesn't know the falcon roasts it
- "No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors "The Chance for Peace" (16 April 1953)
- Nawfal, Yūsuf Ḥasan (1981). محمد عبد الحليم عبد الله: حياته وأدبه. عمادة شؤون المكتبات، جامعة الرياض،.
- لا تقول بـُر ليـن توكيــه
- Translation: Don't say its wheat until you harvest it
- English equivalent: Sell not the bear's skin before you have caught him.
- Meaning: "Do not plan too far ahead and do not be too optimistic. One cannot be sure of the success of a job until it is completed. Unforeseen unfavourable developments can never be excluded."
- Source for meaning of English equivalent: Paczolay, Gyula (1997). "X". European proverbs: in 55 languages, with equivalents in Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese. Veszprémi Nyomda. p. 217. ISBN 1-875943-44-7.
- Riches have disclosed in thy ccharacter the bad qualities fformerly hhidden by thy poverty.
- "You get freedom by letting your eenemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it."
- Malcolm X, Advice to the Youth of Mississippi (1964)
- Ouseley (1830). Arabic Proverbs: Or, The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. J. Murray. p. 163.
- Riches have disclosed in thy ccharacter the bad qualities fformerly hhidden by thy poverty.