African proverbs

You better be running!

Proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten.  – Nigerian proverb

Every culture has words of wisdom, metaphors, philosophies, and proverbs.  I thought I would share with you some famous Africa proverbs (parentheses indicate where this is generally said):

Health is the body of prosperity.  (Africa) 

A village without elders is like a well without water.  (East Africa)

If a child washes his hands, he could eat with kings.  (West Africa)

Between true friends even water drunk together is sweet enough.  (Zimbabwe)

You think of water when the well is empty.  (Ethiopia)

A hippopotamus can be made invisible in dark water.  (West Africa)

Who digs the well should not be refused water.  (East Africa)

One who loves you, warns you.  (Uganda)

Every morning in Africa a gazelle awakens knowing it must today run faster than the fastest lion or it will be eaten.  Every morning a lion awakens knowing it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve.  It matters not whether you are a gazelle or a lion, when the sun rises you had better be running.  (Africa)

He who loves money must labor.  (Africa)

If relatives help each other, what evil can hurt them?  (Africa)

It takes a village to raise a child.  (West Africa)

What an old man sees while sitting, a small child cannot see even standing on top of a mountain!  (Nigeria)

Knowledge is like a garden: if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.  (Africa)

Don’t insult the crocodile until you cross the water.  (Africa)

Not everyone who chased the zebra caught it, be he who caught it chased it.  (South Africa)

Until the lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.  (Zimbabwe)

 In the city of the blind, the man with one eye will be king.  (Nigeria)