451 Nigerian Proverbs / Page 10
181.
If hunger forces a farmer in a particular year to eat both his yam tubers and the seed-yams, the succeeding years would still be worse because he would have no yams to eat and none to plant.182.
If men were now to turn their hostility towards the cat, it would not be long before the domestic cat becomes a wild animal.183.
If neither animal nor vegetable you be, then mineral you are. If one finger brought oil it soiled others.184.
If one finger brought oil it soiled others.185.
If one goes to a land where they cut off ears, he should cut off his own and contribute them.186.
If one imitates the upright, one becomes upright; if one imitates the crooked, one becomes crooked.187.
If one were to remove every smoking wood from a fire and condemn it as bad, one would be killing the fire itself.188.
If one would not eat pounded yam for its own sake, one can still eat it for the sake of the soup that goes with it.189.
If the bull would throw you, lie down.190.
If the load is too heavy for someone to carry, one would be better off to give the load to the ground to carry.191.
If the owner of a calabash calls it a worthless calabash, others will join him to use it to pack rubbish.192.
If the owner of the goat is not afraid to travel by night, the owner of a hyena certainly will not be.193.
If the owner of two adjacent farms cannot be friends, then they must wait till their next reincarnation to be able to make friends.194.
If the stomachache were in the foot, one would go lame.195.
If there is character, ugliness becomes beauty; if there is none, beauty becomes ugliness.196.
If you can't dance well, you'd better not get up.197.
If you don't wish to have rags for clothes, don't play with a dog.198.
If you fail to take away a strong man's sword when he is on the ground, will you do it when he gets up?199.
If you find "Miss This Year" beautiful, then you'll find "Miss Next Year" even more so.200.
If you have one finger pointing at somebody, you have three pointing towards yourself.