130 Malagasy Proverbs / Page 4
61.
If you sell a drum in your own village, you get the money and keep the sound.62.
If you try to cleanse others -- just like soap, you will waste away in the process.63.
In a fight with a fool it's a wise man who quits.64.
Indecision is like the stepchild: if he doesn't wash his hands, he is called dirty; if he does, he is wasting the water.65.
Iron does not clang by itself.66.
It is better to refuse than to accept and not to go.67.
It is not the fire in the fireplace which warms the house, but the couple who get along well.68.
It is the softness of the lime that is fatal to the bird.69.
Let your love be like drizzle: it comes softly, but still swells the river.70.
Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river.71.
Life is a shadow and a mist; it passes quickly by, and is no more.72.
Like the chameleon, one eye on the future, one eye on the past.73.
Living is not a reward and dying is no crime.74.
Love is just like rice -- plant it elsewhere and it grows.75.
Love is like young rice: transplanted, still it grows.76.
Marriage is not a tight knot, but a slip knot.77.
May your friendship not be like a stone: if it breaks you cannot put the pieces together. May it be like iron: when it breaks, you can weld the pieces back together.78.
Money is like a guest: it comes today, leaves tomorrow.79.
Nothing is so difficult that diligence cannot master it.80.
Nothing is so full of victory as patience.