As Alan Loy McGinnus says, “There is no more noble occupation in the world than to assist another human being – to help someone to succeed.” Our goal with the Zambian Proverbs section was to provide a place to share words of wisdom others have said before us, a place to help us all succeed by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Zambian Proverbs

Here are some proverbs from Zambia:

• A child that does not travel praises his mother as the best cook.
• A cow does not find its own horns heavy.
• A tender bamboo cannot be eagerly desired for building.
• If you are ugly, know how to dance.
• If you followed what a chicken eats, would you eat the chicken?
• One who enters the forest does not listen to the breaking of twigs in the brush.
• On travelling it is visiting; on returning it is home.
• Start early before the floods come.
• Talk to a person who can understand and cook for a person who can be satisfied.
• The shark who has eaten cannot swim with the shark that is hungry.
• To get rid of anger, first weed out the bitter roots.
• Tomorrow brings many things.
• Two thighs will always rub together
• You have to look after wealth, but knowledge looks after you.
• Your feet will take you away from home, but your stomach will always bring you back.

Southern African Proverbs

Here are some proverbs from Southern Africa:

• Walking in two is medicine.
• If the palm of the hand itches it signifies the coming of great luck.
• Remember, after the storm there will be a rainbow.
• It is better to have no law than not enforcing it.
• Mother is God number two.
• Copying everyone else all the time, the monkey one day cut his throat.
• A fool is like a wanderer lost on a path.

Northern African Proverbs

Here are some proverbs from Northern Africa:

• Let your love be like the misty rain, coming softly, but flooding the river.
• A wise man who knows proverbs can always reconcile difficulties.
• You must judge a man by the work of his hands.
• If there is cause to hate someone, the cause to love has just begun.
• Children will hate all those who give all things to them.
• Everybody loves a fool, but nobody wants him for a son.
• Rising early makes the road short.
• Little by little the bird builds its nest.
• The tears running down your face do not blind you.
• Those who waste time only hurt themselves.
• When the leg does not walk, the stomach does not eat.

Eastern African Proverbs

Here are some proverbs from Eastern Africa:

• All monkeys cannot hang on the same branch.
• An orphaned calf licks its own back.
• The man may be the head of the home but the wife is the heart.
• Funeral is for us all.
• Happiness is like a field you can harvest every season.
• The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water.
• A man’s heart is not a sack open to all.
• What is inflated too much will break into fragments.
• To one who does not know, a small garden is a forest.
• He who learns, teaches.
• Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree.
• The cattle is as good as the pasture in which it grazes.
• Only a medicine man gets rich by sleeping.
• A close friend can become a close enemy.
• One who recovers from sickness, forgets about God.
• When the heart overflows, it comes out through the mouth.
• Confiding a secret to an unworthy person is like carrying grain in a bag with a hole.
• When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.
• Unless you call out, who will open the door?
• A loose tooth will not rest until it’s pulled out.
• A home without a woman is like a barn without cattle.
• The fool speaks, the wise man listens.
• A too modest man goes hungry.
• He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured.
• Where there is no shame, there is no honour.
• If you find no fish you have to eat bread.
• A good deed is something one returns.
• He who receives a gift does not measure it.
• He who does not know one thing knows another.
• Talking with one another is loving one another.
• Thunder is not yet rain.
• Absence makes the heart forget.
• Virtue is better than wealth.
• Home affairs are not talked about on the public square.
• Seeing is different from being told.
• Don’t take another mouthful before you have swallowed what is in your mouth.
• Don’t kick a sleeping dog.
• A cutting word is worse than a bowstring, a cut may heal, but the cut of the tongue does not.
• One must talk little, and listen much.
• Ingratitude is sooner or later fatal to its author.
• Not all the flowers of a tree produce fruit.
• Too large a mousel chokes the child.
• A home without a mother is a desert.
• It is better that trials come to you in the beginning than that they come to you at the end.
• No one knows caution like regret.

Central African Proverbs

Here are some proverbs from Central Africa:

• No matter how full the river, it still wants to grow.
• Love is like a baby, it needs to be treated tenderly.
• Children are the reward of life.
• The teeth are smiling, but is the heart?
• The friends of our friends are our friends.
• Woods may remain ten years in the water, but it will never become a crocodile.
• Those who respect the elderly pave their own road toward success.
• Work is the medicine for poverty.
• You are beautiful, but learn to work, for you cannot eat your beauty.
• Pride only goes the length one can spit.

Western African Proverbs

Here are some proverbs from Western Africa:

• The pillar of the world is hope.
• Words are sweet, but they never take the place of food.
• There is no medicine against old age.
• Hold a true friend with both hands.
• It takes a village to raise a child.
• Don’t insult the crocodile until you cross the water.
• A big blanket encourages sleeping in the morning.
• Rats don’t dance in the cat’s doorway.
• A hippopotamus can be made invisible in dark water.
• Even the Niger river must flow around an island.
• If the rhythm of the drum beat changes, the dance steps must adapt.
• Rain beats a leopard’s skin, but it does not wash out the spots
• When a man is wealthy, he may wear an old cloth
• Hunger is felt by a slave and hunger is felt by a king.
• It is a bad child who does not take advise.
• There is no medicine to cure hatred.
• When you follow in the path of your father you learn to walk like him.
• You don’t need pain killers for another man’s headache.
• It is the calm and silent water that drowns a man.
• What is bad luck for one man is good luck for another.
• He who cannot dance will say “The drum is bad.”
• It is no shame at all to work for money.
• Even though the old man is strong and hearty, he will not live forever.
• Money is sharper than a sword.
• A man with too much ambition cannot sleep in peace.
• Thought breaks the heart.
• Knowledge is better than riches.
• He who asks questions, cannot avoid the answers.
• Rain does not fall on one roof alone.
• If you find no fish you have to eat bread.
• The world sees the mouth, God sees the stomach.
• The day a man tastes the sweetness of a woman, that day he also tastes the bitterness.
• A good deed is something one returns.
• Too much discussion means a quarrel.
• Mutual gifts cement friendship.
• The dying man is not saved by medicine.
• If you watch your pot, your food will not burn.
• He is a fool whose sheep ran away twice.
• When your neighbor’s horse falls into a pit, you should not rejoice at it, for your own children may fall into it too.
• An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.
• A proud heart can survive a general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride.
• If a child washes his hands he can eat with kings.
• We should talk while we are still alive.
• You cannot take away someone’s luck.
• A lie can destroy a thousand truths.
• He that forgives gains victory.
• A chattering bird builds no nest.
• The rain does not recognize anyone as a friend, it drenches all equally.

Source: Image courtesy of Andrew Rennie