Great Throughts Treasury

"Sorrow is like a precious treasure, shown only to friends."

"If you try to cleanse others, you will waste away like soap in the process."

"Words are like eggs, when they are hatched they have wings."

"Nothing is so difficult that diligence cannot master it."

"Distracted by what is far away, he does not see his nose."

"Don't kick a sleeping dog."

"Life is a shadow and a mist; it passes quickly by, and is no more."

"Indecision is like the stepchild: if he doesn't wash his hands, he is called dirty; if he does, he is wasting the water."

"Don't take another mouthful before you have swallowed what is in your mouth."

"A man who lets his problems get the better of him is like the man who divorces his wife the first time she makes him angry."

"A fortuneteller says, ?If it's not a boy, it will be a girl.?"

"An eel that was not caught is as big as your thigh."

"All who live under the sky are woven together like one big mat."

"Cross the river in a crowd and the crocodile won't eat you."

"Don?t be so much in love that you can?t tell when the rain comes."

"Do not treat your loved one like a swinging door: you are fond of it but you push it back and forth."

"Cross in a crowd and the crocodile won't eat you."

"Don?t be so in love that you can?t tell when rain is coming."

"Don?t blame the axe for the noise made by the chicken you are about to slaughter."

"Don?t take another mouthful before you have swallowed what is already in your mouth."

"Friendship reminds us of fathers, love of mothers."

"Govern a country as you would roast a crocodile on a spit."

"Greet everyone cordially when you don?t know who your in-laws are going to be."

"However little food we have, we'll share it even if it's only one locust."

"If your love is torn apart, you cannot stitch the pieces together again."

"Let your love be like the misty rain, coming softly, but flooding the river."

"It is better to refuse than to accept and not to go."

"Like the chameleon, one eye on the future, one eye on the past."

"Love is like young rice: transplanted, still it grows."

"One does not like hot, the other does not like cold; make it tepid to make an agreement."

"Marriage is not a fast knot but a slip knot."

"The dog?s bark is not might but fright."

"People are like eels in the water, they wander this way and that."

"Other people's children cause your nostrils to flare."

"The end of an ox is beef; and the end of a lie is grief."

"People are like plants in the wind: they bow down and rise up again."

"Those who know how to swim are the ones who sink."

"They who drink the water from the Manangareza River always come back to Madagascar."

"Truth is like sugar cane; even if you chew it for a long time, it is still sweet."

"Whichever hand is cut, the whole body feels the pain."

"Without the forest, there will be no more water, without water, there will be no more rice."

"You can't catch a louse with one finger."