Great Throughts Treasury

"If you have run out of gunpowder, use your gun as a club."

"If you put a razor in your mouth, you will spit blood."

"If you rise early, the dew will wet you."

"If you neglect the pot, it boils over and extinguishes the fire."

"If you rise too early, the dew of life will soak you."

"If you think to have suspicions is wisdom, then, your head is not well."

"In the moment of crisis, the wise build bridges and foolish build dams."

"If you think you have someone eating out of your hands, it is a good idea to count your fingers."

"If you wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes. If you don't wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes."

"If you want to eat a toad, you should look for a fat and juicy one."

"If you watch your pot, your food will not burn."

"If you want to give a sick man medicine, let him first be really ill ? so that he can see how well the medicine works."

"If you wish to eat a mushroom, you cannot consider what the mushroom fed on."

"In the daytime do we chase the black goat."

"If your parents take care of you up to the time you cut your teeth, you take care of them when they lose theirs."

"Ignorance makes the rat call the cat to a fight."

"Inability to refuse errand running, kills horse in battle."

"It is an irresponsible adult that creates enmity because of a disagreement that arises between two children."

"It is a pot of water that is already half full that the world would like to help in filling to the brim."

"It is a lazy man who says "it is only because I have no time that my farm is overgrown with weeds"."

"Is it not ignorance that makes the rat attack the cat?"

"It is from a small seed that the giant Iroko tree has its beginning."

"It is an unthinking man who achieves prosperity, and then finds with time, that his body can no longer pass through the door."

"It is by the strength of their number that the ants in the field are able to carry their prey to the nest."

"It is for saying that he has no time that the monkey's body became over-grown with long hairs."

"It is easy for the butterfly to think himself a bird."

"It is he who has no place to call at that moves fast through life."

"It is in one?s yard that one eats a rat with a navel."

"It is not changing into a lion that is hard; it is getting the tail of a lion. [Interpretation: - It is easy for you to pretend to be what you are not; but when it comes to proving your worth, you will be found out.]"

"It is more fun doing evil than putting it right."

"It is from the threshold of the coward that we will point to the ruin and grave of warrior."

"It is not easy to say that ?he is greater than I?: the quarrel based on envy does not end on time."

"It is little by little that a bird builds its nest."

"It is not only the fox, even the snail arrives at its destination."

"It is not enough to run, one must arrive and know when one has arrived."

"It is not hunger that makes a cat to be smaller than a tiger: It is its nature."

"It is one person in a street that kills a dog and the street is named a street of dog killers."

"It is one word of advice that one needs to give to a wise man, and that word keeps multiplying in his mind."

"It is only the toad that gets up from its knees and falls back again on its knees."

"It is said that the secrets of a home should be known first to the head of the home."

"It is only the tortoise that moves and carries its shell about, which it calls its house."

"It is sickness that man can cure, not death."

"It is only when fish is fresh that you can bend it."

"It is the boast of every juju priest that unless he dies, no thief can ever come to steal his juju away."

"It is the brutally outspoken man that earns enmity."

"It is the curiosity of the goat that leads him to salute the hyaena."

"It is the fear of what tomorrow may bring that makes the tortoise to carry his house along with him wherever he goes."

"It is the fortunate person that the physician undertakes to help."

"It is the first step that is difficult."

"It is the fear of offense that makes men swallow poison."