Part 2: On perspicaciousness (good judgment, perceptiveness), reasonableness, sagacity, savoir-faire, wisdom, and worldly wisdom

K

Instead of permitting defeat by a child in a game, an elder should resort to elderly wiles.

Whatever keeps one from being deaf to certain things keeps one from being happy.

It is not to every person who says “Whoever has received some bounty from God should give to me” that one gives alms.

What is there to wear in a pair of trousers bought at three for three hundred cowries, or three a penny?

What would a cap be doing atop the ògógó mushroom? Pepper will remove it.

What is the cloth-selling woman have to sell that she carries a whip in her hand?

A small sore calls for the balsam tree leaf; a big sore takes an ẹ̀gbẹ̀sì leaf; a huge ulcer calls for a whole bolt of cloth.

Learning is knowing, Àjàpà's proverb.

Bit by bit the rat consumes the leather; gently gently the ant sloughs its skin.

There is no yam-flower meal seller who will advertise her ware as fluffy; the àdàlú seller alone speaks the truth.

There is no snuff seller who will advertise her ware as awful; they all say they are selling honey.

There is nobody who does not know the trick of putting meat in the mouth and making it disappear.

Was it the lump that first got to the head, or the head that first got to the lump?

A rather small thing: this is enough for me.

Very loud is the way one consults Ifá for a deaf person.

“Kubẹrẹ, let us go to the bush where small snails are picked.” He said the last such trip he went on, he has not returned from it.

79. The anecdote connected with the proverb states that once Àjàpá (Tortoise and trickster) made a basket so speedily that people asked in astonishment how it did it, and it responded with the proverb.  [Back to text]