African Proverbs Quotes

You can no longer see or identify yourself solely as a member of a tribe, but as a citizen of a nation of one people working toward a common purpose.

A child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth

If everyone helps to hold up the sky, then one person does not become tired.

Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

Most people write me off when they see me. They do not know my story. They say I am just an African. They judge me before they get to know me. What they do not know is The pride I have in the blood that runs through my veins; The pride I have in my rich culture and the history of my people; The pride I have in my strong family ties and the deep connection to my community; The pride I have in the African music, African art, and African dance; The pride I have in my name and the meaning behind it. Just as my name has meaning, I too will live my life with meaning. So you think I am nothing? Don’t worry about what I am now, For what I will be, I am gradually becoming. I will raise my head high wherever I go Because of my African pride, And nobody will take that away from me.

A relationship is likely to last way longer, if each partner convinces or has convinced themselves that they do not deserve their partner, even if that is not true.

Some people avoid thinking deeply in public, only because they are afraid of coming across as suicidal.

Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.

At the most one could say that his chi or ... personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. ---African Proverb

A premature death does not only rob one of the countless instances where one would have experienced pleasure, it also saves one from the innumerable instances where one would have experienced pain.

The most upsetting thing about Society’s attitude towards disabled people is that many millions of disabled people became disabled while trying to please Society, the very same bitch that secretly regards them as subhuman.

The axe forgets; the tree remembers

If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far go together", African Proverb

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.

Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.

Until lions start writing down their own stories, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.” —AFRICAN PROVERB

A speaker of truth has no friends.' -African Proverb

Fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. Only Fools despise wisdom and discipline." Proverbs 1:7 NLT

Some people will hate you for not loving them.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together" - African Proverb

We are way less likely to love someone just because they love us than we are to hate someone just because they hate us.

A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.

Most sane human beings who are over the age of six usually act or react not as per what they genuinely feel or really think but in accordance with the expectations of those around them.

Some people hate people who are overconfident, only because their overconfidence reminds them of their underconfidence.

You educate a boy, and you're educating an individual. You educate a girl, and you're educating a village. -African Proverb

Casement quoted an African proverb: "A man doesn't go among thorns unless a snake's after him—or he's after a snake." He added, "I'm after a snake and please God I'll scotch it.

When death comes to find you, may it find you alive

Patriotism is the narcissism of countries.

Sometimes you have to be a lion to be the lamb you really are.

A good soup attracts chairs. This is an African proverb. I can hear the shuffling and squeaking on the wood floor, the gathering 'round. This, from just five well-chosen words.

Not everyone who talks less or keeps quiet whenever they are with or around you does that because they find you interesting or knowledgeable; some people do that because they find you boring or ignorant.

Adults who use big words in order to seem intelligent are annoying, especially those who are not intelligent.

The world economy would collapse if a significant number of people were to realize and then act on the realization that it is possible to enjoy many if not most of the things that they enjoy without first having to own them.

Most men would no longer enjoy conversing with most women if they stopped bringing their vaginas along.

Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter,” says an African proverb. But what if the lionesses write eloquently but the editors prefer the hunters’ version?

The fact that the person who you are sleeping with is also sleeping with another person or other people does not necessarily mean that he or she does not love you. And the fact that you are the only person who someone is sleeping with does not necessarily mean that he or she loves you.

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

In some cases, you can tell how somebody is being treated by their own boss from the way they are treating someone to whom they are a boss.

When you pray, move your feet. —AFRICAN PROVERB

As that August burned away, I sometimes thought of an African proverb I’d read in one of my classes: When an old man dies, a library burns.

Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.

Death devours not only those who have been cooked by old age; it also feasts on those who are half-cooked and even those who are raw.

In reality most human beings are not, to most human beings, more important than money.

There is an African proverb that says: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

If we were not impressed by job titles, suits, and jargon, we would demand that financial advisors show us their personal bank statements before they tell us what we could or should do with our own money.

Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.

A seemingly simple task like taking a bath or wearing a condom feels like multitasking to someone who suffers from hemiplegia or has only one hand.

Bigheadedness is usually a symptom of small-mindedness.

To some believers, being on the pill or using a condom is a nonverbal way of telling God to go to hell.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together

Being rich or famous is the only profound thing that some people have ever said.

The last time everyone loved or at least liked everyone was when the world had a population of about 4.

The average adult has had sex innumerable times more than they have formed an opinion of their own.

When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

Life is lived in time. Therefore he who wastes time, wastes life.

I have always been fond of the West African proverb: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far,’ 

Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.

Many a survivor of a plane crash who is or was against cannibalism and had never eaten human flesh once found themselves in a situation where they had to either eat human flesh, or go the way of all flesh.

Millions of business people are each constantly forced to choose between their desire to not be a bad person and their desire to be a good business person, that is to say, to make as much money as they possibly can by maximizing their revenue while minimizing the cost of producing whatever it is that they sell.

Most human beings strongly believe that money is way less important than the life of a human being, but in reality five hundred, fifty, or even five dollars are way more important to the lives of most human beings than the lives of most human beings.

UBUNTU - I am because we are, and because we are, you are.

Those who want rain, must also accept the mud.

Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible.

There is nothing morally wrong with buying stolen goods, unless you know that they were stolen.

A fight is like the perfect storm. It is risky and dangerous. But, as the African proverb goes, Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. Fights are often learning opportunities—if we’re willing to dig deep enough past our own egos.

Wow, he’d just recited to me a version of what I’d said to myself in Australia when I’d refused to call the Dooleys Mum and Pop. A double whammy of African proverbs: They are not trying to win arguments of right or wrong. They are trying to understand each other. That’s different. (Hey, America, we could learn from this.) The next morning we continued toward the Bandiagara Escarpment.

Many a parent, sad to say, has used their child as an opportunity for them, the parent, to do, through their child, something or some of the things that they, the parent, did not do or did not do successfully.

For their never-ending endeavours to obtain or retain wealth, countries desperately need companies, because they—unlike most human beings—have the means of production, and human beings, because they—unlike all companies—have the means of reproduction.

Some people are each holding on to a lover of theirs who no longer loves them and/or who they no longer love, only because they do not want to have a reason or another reason to be jealous of the person who would eventually be their lover if they let go of them.

We, in the interest of the so-called progress, have been persuaded to leave the production and at times the cooking of our food to companies whose owners and employees make a living by exploiting our busyness or laziness and our innate hunger to continue living.

You always learn a lot more when you lose than when you win

Most human beings would have never been pained by the death of a human being if they had never seen a human being or pretending to be pained by that.

Most of us cling to life as if our existence were a result of our deed or choice.

Although they probably know that some children were used and some children are used as miners, most adults are ignorant of the chocolate industry’s use of minors.

A woman’s body and her heart are entwined; you can’t savor her body and dump her heart. It’s the heart that propels the body.

Looking is one thing, seeing is another. Some only see with their eyes while others see with their minds also. However, inability to see with the mind is the worst kind of blindness.

Loneliness tortures many if not most of the elderly more intensely and more frequently than it torments many if not most of us who will never be or have not yet been pushed or pulled into old age.

Most sane human beings who have managed to attain and retain fame each uses it to dramatically increase their name’s chances of being remembered until Jesus comes back, since their heart cannot do what they consciously or unconsciously lust for, that is to say, for it to beat until Jesus returns.

Just like how most if not all poor boys look up to and aspire to someday be rich men, most if not all underdeveloped and developing countries look up to and aspire to someday be developed countries.

Many millions of pregnancies—many if not most of which have each led to the birth of at least one child—were each used as nothing but a conspicuous means to a secret end called the evasion of abortion.

When selecting a one-night stand, a heterosexual woman who is materialistic is a trillion times more likely to choose a sexually unattractive poor man who seems rich over a sexually attractive rich man who seems poor.

To ask a man whether or not he has a girlfriend is to talk about his sex life. If you disagree with that, then how in the name of God do you differentiate between a man’s girlfriend and a girl that is a friend to the man?

As we all know, as if forever exploiting or attempting to exploit each other were not enough, a group of sane human beings who have just reached the end of a war against a common enemy of theirs will sooner or later start or continue killing and/or fighting against each other.

Boredom is probably more frequent and more tormenting if you do not have sight or hands.

For a sane person to sincerely be happy that someone has succeeded, they have to either be profiting or likely to profit from that person’s success, or be that person.

If one lie or one theft qualify one as a liar or a thief; why does one truth or one honesty not qualify one as truthful or honest? Puzzling!

Birds are sky bound; holding them down in a cage is wicked love.

Striking a snake with a short stake is a mistake. Instead, take a long rake and break its head, if it quakes or shakes, strike again and again till it can’t wake to make trouble.

The fierceness of an animal is in the eyes.

No matter how hot your anger may be, it cannot cook.

If you ever thought you were too small to make a difference, you’ve never shared a bed with a mosquito.

If anyone makes you laugh, it is not always because they love you.

The name of a man is more in his thoughts than in what is thought of him. As a container shapes liquid, so are our lives shaped by our thoughts.

Lion may be admired for courage, strength and tenacity but its life is a living death. Once dispossessed of a pride or injured, it dies very miserably. That a lion, of all its charisma can die so wretchedly emphasizes the fact that death is a great leveler.

More often than not, expecting to lose weight without first losing the diet that made the weight loss necessary is like expecting a pig to be spotless after hosing it down while it was still rolling in mud.

It goes without saying that even those of us who are going to hell will get eternal life—if that territory really exists outside religious books and the minds of believers, that is. Having said that, given the choice, instead of being grilled until hell freezes over, the average sane human being would, needless to say, rather spend forever idling in an extremely fertile garden, next to a lamb or a chicken or a parrot, which they do not secretly want to eat, and a lion or a tiger or a crocodile, which does not secretly want to eat them.

If ever a man deserved his success, that man was Okonkwo. At an early age he had achieved fame as the greatest wrestler in all the land. That was not luck. At the most one could say that his chi or personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man say yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed. And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of his hands.

There is genius in plants, look how they make herbs. There is genius in flowers, look how they make scents. There is genius in trees, look how they make fruits. There is genius in seeds, look how they make forests. There is genius in bees, look how they make honey. There is genius in birds, look how they make nests. There is genius in spiders, look how they make webs. There is genius in ants, look how they make colonies. There is genius in clouds, look how they make rain. There is genius in storms, look how they make rainbows. There is genius in stars, look how they make light. There is genius in galaxies, look how they make planets. There is genius in order, look how it makes structure. There is genius in space, look how it makes distance. There is genius in momentum, look how it makes force. There is genius in stillness, look how it makes silence. There is genius in time, look how it makes fate. There is genius in sound, look how it makes music. There is genius in movement, look how it makes energy. There is genius in nature, look how it makes life. There is genius in intelligence, look how it makes reason. There is genius in understanding, look how it makes insights. There is genius in intuition, look how they make choices. There is genius in wisdom, look how it makes judgments. There is genius in minds, look how they make thoughts. There is genius in hearts, look how they make desires. There is genius in souls, look how they make experiences. There is genius in cells, look how they make bodies. There is genius in children, look how they make tales. There is genius in youth, look how they make questions. There is genius in adults, look how they make answers. There is genius in elders, look how they make proverbs. There is genius in the past, look how it makes memories. There is genius in the present, look how it makes reality. There is genius in the future, look how it makes destinies. There is genius in life, look how it makes existence.