r is honey, don't lick him all up.

If you don't know a man's parents look at his appearance.

What a strange world if all wool were red!

Fall but don't bawl.

Your enemy will love you when the ass becomes a doctor.

Wait, donkey, till the grass grows.

A loaned garment is not warm.

He is a hard man; his name is Rock, son of a Cliff.

The oppression of a cat is better than the justice of a rat.

While I was fishing, I was caught.

A blacksmith came to shoe the Pasha's horse and a frog in the pond stuck
out her foot too.

One nettle seed will ruin a garden.

Who speaks the whole truth will get a broken head.

What's the good of a house without food?

Ask experience but don't neglect the doctor.

She wears seven veils but has no modesty.

He fasted a year and breakfasted on an onion.

A false friend is an open enemy.

They gave me no food, but the smoke from their kitchen blinded me.

When the lion is away, the hyenas play.

They said to the blind man, throw away your stick; he replied, why desert
an old friend?

Haste is of the devil; deliberation, of God.

They put the dog's tail in the press forty years, and when it came out it
still had a curl.

Lucky days do not come in a bunch.

Look for a thing where you lost it.

Some of these resemble our own proverbs and others may perplex you at
first. Of course they are all better in Arabic than in the translation.
The people of Arabia seldom or never engage in practical jokes, but they
are often very witty in their remarks. The Caliph Mansur once met an Arab
on the desert and said to him: "Give thanks to God who has caused the
plague to cease that ravaged thy country."

"God is too good," the Arab answered, "to punish us with two such scourges
at the same time as the plague and thy government."

An Arab poet sent his book to a famous author. "Dost thou want fame?"
said the latter, "then hang thy book up in the market-place where all can
see it."

"But how will they know the author?"

"Why, just hang yourself close to the book!"

Here is another story that is told about a Moslem preacher. One Friday
when the people were gathered in the mosque to pray and to hear the
sermon, he got up in the pulpit and asked the audience if they knew what
he intended to preach about.

"No," they replied.

"Well, then, I shall not tell you," and he stepped down. The next Friday
he asked the same question, and now, taught by experience, they answered: