Part 1: On humility, self-control, self-knowledge, self-respect, and self-restraint

Edot

“Lead it into the stable” is what becomes a horseman.

Let us breathe, leave us in peace; the fashion is for people to sit on their behinds; were humans in the position of God they would not permit people to breathe.

“Greetings to you, house-bound ones” is improper for the house-bound to utter; “Welcome home” is not proper for the person arriving from a trip; whoever fails to give “welcome” to the person returning does himself or herself out of “greetings, house-bound.”

The mouth-trap never misses.

It is for one's peers that one makes pounded yam with ewùrà yams.

The novice does not know that a good-looking person does not wear a masquerade; all his perfectly white teeth are concealed beneath the cloth.

The elder walks in front, a loincloth draped over his shoulder; the younger walks behind, wearing a garment; if people cannot tell which one is shiftless, does he not know himself?

A person says he has lost an unspecified amount of money, and you ask if the amount is five hundred cowries or eleven hundred cowries; which amount did you steal?

The pig wallows in mud, but thinks it is being a dandy.

A pig does not know what is becoming.

When a person proclaims the loss of six articles, one does not respond by saying one has not eaten in six days.

The person one would leave on the farm hoping he would become a partridge boasts that he is the indispensable presence of the household.

A person who should be sold for money to purchase a machete bemoans his lack of a machete.

A person who should be sold for money to purchase a lamp boasts that he is one-people-light-lamps-to-admire-at-night.

A person one would sell for money to purchase quartered yams for planting: he claims that he has enough earnings to buy three hundred yam pieces.

It is the person who is revered that will disgrace himself or herself.

Whoever gazes downwards with will see his or her nose.

The person who wears a crown has outgrown childhood.

The person who is clothed by others does not list what he will not wear.

A person one loves is different from a person who says there is no one like him/herself.

The person whom people have seated on a pig should moderate his or her strutting; even a horse rider will eventually come down to earth.

A person who can be lifted does not hang limp.

A person whose appearance moves one to tears is moved to laughter by his own appearance.

A person whose company is not desired gets no turn at riddling.

A person not welcome in the town does not take a turn in the dancing circle.

The person one would expect to be reckless is not reckless; the person one would expect to be cautious is not cautious; the millipede with two hundred arms and two hundred legs behaves very gently.

A person who lacks the strength to lift an ant but rushes forward to lift an elephant ends in disgrace.

It is a person with limited experience of life who thinks there is none as wise as he.

It is the person who deceives himself that the gods above deceive: a bachelor who has no wife at home but implores the gods to grant him children.

A person who is not huge in stature does not breathe heavily.

The person who is self-aware protects his or her own reputation thereby.

Nobody is entitled to say, “Here we come.”

What sort of meat is it, the likes of which one has never tasted? A toad comes upon one at the swamp and cowers in fright.

The haft of the hoe is behaving like a hoe.

A palace guard does not receive arrows on his back; he suffers wounds only on his front.

A chain as thick as a palm-tree cannot stop an elephant; the vine that proposes to stop the elephant from going to the grassland will go with the elephant.

I was born of a monkey; I was raised by a leopard, I was adopted by a cat; if there is no meat in the stew I will not eat it.

The woodpecker boasts that it can carve a mortar; who ever used a mortar carved by the woodpecker to make pounded yam?

A bird cannot get at the liquid inside a coconut to drink.

Whatever bird emulates the vulture will find itself behind the cooking hearth.

48. The Yoruba word for the partridge, àparò, can be rendered, etymologically, as à-pa-rò (something one kills and boasts about killing), because the bird is a desirable stew meat.  [Back to text]

49. The proverb is usually a comment directed at a particular person, rather than a general proposition or observation.  [Back to text]