AFRICAN PROVERBS
- A man, who chases two rats, kills no one.
- A man whose house is on fire does not go chasing rats.
- A river, which fills up in a man’s presence, cannot carry him away.
- When brothers fight to the death, a stranger inherits their father’s property.
- One does not test the depth of a river with both feet.
- Anger and madness are brothers.
- A child’s name pretends his future.
- A timid man cannot inherit his father’s title.
- Singing birds does not build nests.
- A man, who throws stones in the marketplace, hit someone from his own house.
- A man does not go to sleep with a burning lamp on his roof.
- Twenty children cannot play together for twenty years.
- A man, who has no remedy for stomach ache, should not eat cockroaches.
- A wearing child that does not cry will die on its mother’s back.
- A lie may travel for twenty years, but one day, truth will eventually catch up with it.
- A sheep, which walks with dogs, will eat faeces; a dog, which walks with sheep, will eat yam peelings.
- If vines unite; they will tie up an elephant.
- That, which makes a farmer cry, is a source of amusement for the partridge.
- The customs of one land are taboo in another.
- A man, who wishes to grow tall, will have thin legs.
- Short or bald, a man without debt is a man without shame; it is debt, which exposes a man to shame.
- It is not only rain, which drives a man to seek shelter.
- Once the mouth has eaten, the eyes grow dim
- A man’s character is like smoke. It cannot be hidden.
- A man who pursues an innocent chicken, always stumble.
- A river, which forgets its source, runs dry.
- The hand that gives is always on top.
- The tree, which does not know how to dance, will be taught by the wind.
- One does not count the fingers of a nine-fingered man in his presence.
- A man should not sniff what he does not intend to eat.
- When a mother and her child are burnt by fire, the mother brushes the flames from her body first.
- Hearing and refusing to heed ruins a child. Seeing and refusing to speak ruins an old man.
- A child may have as many clothes as an old man, but he can never have as many rags.
- A fool, if not restrained, will throw stones at a leopard.
- The fly which sticks close to the hunter will drink it’s fill of blood.