Great Throughts Treasury

"When the bag tears, the shoulders get a rest."

"When someone is already approaching, there is no need to say "Come here.""

"When the fool is told a proverb, its meaning has to be explained to him."

"When there is the mouth don’t use your head to talk."

"When the cock is drunk, he forgets about the hawk."

"When the palm nuts ripen, you carry half and I carry half."

"When women increase in wealth, they are silent. But when they fall into trouble, the whole world gets to know."

"When the wind blows, it's then we see the chickens ass."

"When you are at home, your troubles can never defeat you."

"When you are rich, you are hated; when you are poor, you are despised."

"When you are sitting in your own house, you don’t learn anything. You must get out of your house to learn."

"When you follow in the path of your father, you learn to walk like him."

"When you go to someone else’s house and the owner is squatting there on the ground, you do not ask for a stool."

"When you push an old woman, where she falls should not be your headache."

"Where there is a head, one does not put a hat on the knee."

"Where error gets to, correction cannot reach."

"Wood already touched by fire is not hard to set alight"

"You become wise when you begin to run out of money."

"Yam is sweet, but one should eat it in the normal way, lest swallowing chokes him."

"Will always wear a hat as long as the head is not decapitated."

"Why you should I allow a snake to bite me, when there is a stick in the house."

"Wisdom is not like money to be tied up and hidden."

"You can always buy her back later."

"You cannot hide behind your finger."

"You cannot kill an elephant with bullets of wax."

"You cannot shave somebody in his absence."

"You do not look into a bottle with both eyes at the same time."

"You do not use a hook without a bait to catch a fish."

"You don’t pick birds’ nests on the way, when you are going to a city full of birds."

"You don't need a light to see someone you know intimately at night."

"You drain off water from the canoe in which you travel."

"You should not hoard your money and die of hunger."

"You must act as if it is impossible to fail."

"You make a new arrow by comparing it to an old one."