Arabic proverbs

Proverbs from all Arabic speaking parts of the world.

Sourced

• 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.
• Death will overtake you wherever you may be, even in high towers.
  • Quran 4:78
  • Quoted in Bardenstein (2005), p. 68
• 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 off the mouse.
  • Atmaram Sadashiv, G. Jayakar (1900). Omani proverbs (Reimpresa ed.). Oleander Press. p. 69. ISBN 0906672120. 
• The one with no ears gets the earrings !
  • Quoted in Bardenstein (2005), p. 66
• 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