Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Pashto Proverbs

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"The world is a traveler's Sarai."

"There is no tree which has not felt the force of the wind."

"Though a mother is meat, it is not lawful (to the son to eat it)."

"They who neglect their old friends for the sake of new, are rightly served if they lose both."

"There are lots of stones but only those of a seer's weight are the ones that are needed."

"Though arms are a load, sometimes they are useful."

"Though I am but a straw, I am as good as you."

"Though a month be a unit, its days are many."

"Though my house has been burnt, my house of sun-baked bricks walls have become much stronger and better by being firebaked."

"Though I have not pastured flocks, yet I have heard the patter of their feet."

"Though silk be old, it is better than cotton thread."

"Though the cock crow not, morning will dawn."

"Though the cow be black, its milk is white."

"Though the grave be a jail, it is unavoidable for the corpse. ."

"Though the army be one's father's, it is bad."

"Though the night be dark, the hand does not miss the mouth."

"Though truth-telling is proper, it [can be] bitter."

"Though you are of the border, I am of the woods."

"Though you be a guest, you are not a dead man."

"Though you have a white beard and toothless gums, you have not ceased attending to worldly affairs."

"Through too many butchers, the sheep becomes unfit for food."

"To do work may be easy; to be master may be difficult."

"To a true man his sickle is an Afghan knife."

"To make yourself equal to your kinsman wear white clothes."

"Though you go to Kabul, your appointed lot will follow you there."

"To the moneyed man a mistress comes from Kabul."

"True men are not God, but are not without God either."

"Until some man tries the depth and the bottom, whether firm or a quicksand, it is impossible to say where the ford is."

"Turn your face to virtue, and your back to vice."

"Were an old woman anything of a seer, she would ruin many families."

"Use language with everyone according to the measure of his understanding."

"Were the knife of gold even, no one should plunge it into his own belly."

"Water overflows where the banks are weak."

"What is in deposit with a Hindu, is in a grain-safe. Though pleasures become many, none will equal milk."

"What are you doing where you have neither sheep nor lambs?"

"What is the use to you of that Spring in which neither your calves nor your lambs graze?"

"What do donkeys know of eating green wheat?"

"What is white shines best amidst black."

"What will her mother's or grandmother's beauty avail the bride who is not herself beautiful?"

"When a brave man can't get assistance readily, he sets to work and does without it."

"What tree is there that the wind has not shaken?"

"What the mother ate her child sucked."

"What you spit out will not come back into your mouth."

"When a man grows old, every illness is ready for him."

"When forming judgment as to a man's worth, do not regard only one or two points, e.g., his skill with the sword, but study him all round, and strike the balance from the general result."

"When the talk is silly and thoughtless, I am better asleep than in such waking."

"When a stick is stirred in filth, the stench from it increases."

"When the time arrives for the snake to die, it goes on to the road."

"When our neighbor's house is on fire, it is time to look to our own."

"When the wedding is over what is the use of putting on henna?"