Iranian Proverbs

Sayings of Iranian origin

• Whoever has no children has no light in his eyes.~ Iranian Saying
• Whatever you eat will rot, whatever you give will blossom into a rose.
• When the tide of misfortune moves over you, even jelly will break your teeth
• Do not use words that are too big for your mouth.
• To the ant, a few drops of dew are a flood.
• Life is like perpetual drunkenness, the pleasure passes but the headache remains.
• When fortune turns against you, even jelly breaks your teeth.
• Who does not beat his own child will later beat his own breast.
• It is a wise man who can laugh at his own jokes.
• Thinking well is wise; planning well, wiser; but doing well is the wisest and best of all.
• The tears of the roasting meat kindle the fire even more.
• In at one ear and out at the other.
• In the hotel of decisions the guests sleep well.
• I can only get better if I have good friends.
• The arrow that has left the bow never returns.
• A child is a bridge to heaven.
• You cannot hang everything on one nail.
• It is a real compliment that comes from an enemy.
• If you can give me no ointment for my wound, can you help me by not rubbing salt in?
• Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
• Once I had the strength but no wisdom; now I have the wisdom but no strength.
• The larger a man’s roof, the more snow it collects.
• He whose heart is aroused by love will never die.
• You cannot applaud with one hand.
• The drowning man is not troubled by rain.
• An arrow can be pulled out of a wound, but a hurtful word stays forever in your heart.
• He, who has only one enemy, meets him everywhere.
• The leek resembles its seed and little Hassan takes after his father.
• Our real grave is not in the ground but in men’s hearts.
• When the cat and the mouse agree, the grocer is ruined.
• With a sweet tongue of kindness, you can drag an elephant by a hair.
• Women are just like cats, they always land on their feet.
• The virtuous will be praised but not envied.
• If the Sultan demands five eggs, let his soldiers roast a thousand chickens.
• Acquaintance without patience is like a candle with no light.
• The strictness of the teacher is better to bear than the prejudice of the father.
• You don’t put a wooden pot on the fire twice.
• There are three things that have to be done quickly: burying the dead, opening the door for a stranger, and fixing your daughter’s wedding.
• God gives to us according to the measure of our hearts.
• There is no need for fish in an empty pond.
• The world is a rose; smell it and pass it on to your friends.
• As soon as a man gets new trousers, he thinks about a new wife.
• Epigrams succeed where epics fail.
• A thief is a king till he’s caught.
• The lover who gives you her body but not her heart is generous with thorn less roses.
• While yearning for excess we lose the necessities.
• Do well the little things now; so shall great things come to thee by and by asking to be done.
• The earth is a host who kills his guests.
• If a fool borrows a book, cut off his hand; but cut off both hands, of the fool who brings it back.
• A greedy man is always poor.
• With one ear he hears, and with the other he dismisses.
• A stone thrown at the right time is better than gold given at the wrong time
• A timely tear is better than a misplaced smile.
• Where the camel is sold for a cent, the ass is worthless.
• One sin is too much, a hundred prayers are not enough.
• Make bread while the oven is hot.
• The best memory is that which forgets nothing, but injuries.
• The way a house is decorated will tell much about its owner.
• A friend is like a poem.
• As the wise man looks for a bridge the fool crosses the river.
• I wept because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.
• It is nothing for one to know something unless another knows you know it.
• A man without passion is no son of Adam.
• A man without a child is a king without sorrows.
• A sharp tongue will cut off its own head.
• Who has not had a taste longs to do so, but for whom has tasted then the longing is a hundred times more.
• The cripple will always find a stone to kick.
• Credit is better than wealth.
• It is not from the love of God that the cat catches mice.
• Fear those who do not fear God.
• It takes two days to learn everything about a man; to know animals you will need more time.
• Often the best way of giving oneself what one lacks is to take from oneself what one has.
• Give nine, save ten.
• Woe is he who claims to have found happiness.
• A man’s servant can live for a hundred years; the slave of a woman dies in six months.
• Every man is the king of his own beard.
• Every man goes down to his death bearing in his hands only that which he has given away.
• What is brought by the wind will be carried away by the wind.
• A blind man who sees is better than a sighted man who is blind.
• The lack of gold only a headache.
• You can’t pick up two melons with one hand.
• He who doesn’t go to war roars like a lion.
• Use your enemy’s hand to catch a snake.
• Walls have mice and mice have ears.
• There are three kinds of enemy: the enemy himself, the friends of your enemy, and the enemies of your friends.
• Giving advice to the ignorant is like the rain falling on muddy ground.
• He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool, shun him; He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a child, teach him. He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep, wake him. He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise, follow him.
• Four walls make a man free.
• If you tell the truth too early, you are laughed at, too late and you are stoned.
• He is still alive because he cannot afford a funeral.
• When a cat wants to eat her kittens, she says they look like mice.
• If one has to jump a stream and knows how wide it is, he will not jump. If he does not know how wide it is, he will jump, and six times out of ten he will make it.
• Do not let the cat watch over the bacon.
• If there are two cooks in one house, the soup is either too salty or too cold.
• The bride who wears four petticoats has a lot to hide.
• Luck is infatuated with the efficient.
• Bribery makes both parties happy.
• He who wants the rose must respect the thorn.
• Flies will easily fly into the honey; their problem is how to get out.
• The bigger a man’s head, the worse his headache.
• A camel does not drink with a spoon.
• A gentle hand may lead even an elephant by a single hair.
• To sin in secret is more pleasant than having pleasure in the open.
• The mediator in a fight gets all the blows.
• Of everything else the newest; of friends, the oldest.
• Necessity changes a lion into a fox.
• For an ant to have wings would be his undoing.
• God provides, but he needs a nudge.
• Maturity comes from wisdom not in the passing of years.
• When the snake is old, the frog will tease him.
• When a lion is old, he becomes the plaything of jackals.
• The mud that you throw will fall on your own head.
• The needle makes clothes but stays naked.
• He who eats alone is Satan’s brother.
• Every tear has a smile behind it.
• Write kindness in marble and write injuries in the dust.
• A bad wound heals but a bad word doesn’t.
• The halfwit spoke, and the brainless believed.
• Doubt is the key to knowledge.
• It is the mountains that do not move to help one another; but one man surely comes to the help of another.
• In this world generous people have no money and those with money are not generous.
• Taking the first step with the good thought, the second with the good word, and the third with the good deed, I enter paradise.
• A tear at the right moment is better than a misplaced smile.
• The eyes can do a thousand things that the fingers can’t.
• Who has ever seen tomorrow?
• Whoever can walk on water is probably made of straw.
• Go and wake up your luck.
• Never open a door that you can’t lock again.
• Everyone thinks his own spit tastes good.
• When a stone hits glass, the glass breaks. When glass hits a stone, the glass breaks.
• A wolf’s repentance died a long time ago.
• You only appreciate your father the day you become a father yourself.
• An ungrateful son is a wart on his father’s nose. If he leaves it, it’s ugly. If he removes it, it hurts.
• Forgiveness hides a pleasure that you can’t get back from revenge.
• A visitor comes with ten blessings, eats one, and leaves nine.
• Expect trust from a dog but not from a woman.
• He that sows shall also reap.
• Great needs grow from great possessions.
• Every fault that a Sultan pleases can be a quality.
• When I am dead the world can be an ocean or a dried up ditch.
• The dog is a lion in his own house.
• Be a lion at home and a fox abroad.
• One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common sense to apply it.
• It’s better to flee and stay alive than to die and become a hero.
• Thick body, weak soul.
• There are four things every person has more of than they know; sins, debt, years, and foes.
• The sky is the same color wherever you go.
• You can close the city gates, but you can’t close the people’s mouths.
• What the thief stole has always been called expensive.
• I have no right to rejoice at the death of my enemy when I do not have eternal life myself.
• For his master the dog is a lion.
• Listening to good advice is the way to wealth.
• One sip of wine is an antidote against death, cupfuls poison life.
• I gave so much advice that hair grew on my tongue.
• The doctor must heal his own bald head.
• The night hides a world, but reveals a universe.
• Treat your superior as a father, your equal as a brother, and your inferior as a son.
• Solved riddles look easy.
• The fool’s excuse is bigger than the mistake he made.
• Sometimes the body becomes healthy by being very sick.
• The wise man that does not put his knowledge into practice is like a bee that gives no honey.
• The branch that bears the most fruit bends itself thankfully towards the ground.
• Little by little the wool becomes a carpet.
• The hand that gives is also the one that receives.
• A mirror does not reflect a broken heart.
• Only a heart can find the way to another heart.
• “That smells bad”, said the cat about meat that it cannot reach.
• Stretch your foot to the length of your blanket.
• Once a friend, always a friend.
• I eat what others have planted and I plant what others want to eat.
• If you enter the city of the blind, cover your eyes.
• One spark is enough to burn a hundred worlds.
• The pleasure of finding something is worth more than what you find.
• The loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy.
• A rolling stone gathers no moss.
• Don’t just take love, experience it.
• Trust in God, but tie your camel tight.
• If you fall into a pit, Providence is under no obligation to come and look for you.
• You can’t escape death and guests.
• Beware a rickety wall, a savage dog, and a quarrelsome person.
• Learn good manners from those who don’t have them.
• If you really have to sin, then choose a sin that you enjoy.
• He who has been bitten by a snake fears a piece of string.
• The guard’s sleep is the lamplight of the thief.
• When its time has come, the prey goes to the hunter.
• He who sits waiting for his neighbor will go to bed hungry.
• The public improves the speaker’s speech.
• What you give away you keep.
• The big drum only sounds well from a distance.
• A sword in the hands of a drunken slave is less dangerous than science in the hands of the immoral.
• Who sows barley cannot reap wheat.
• A friend is he who gives a helping hand to his friend in distress.
• When fate strikes physicians are useless.
• Flies will never leave the shop of a sweet maker.
• The shoemaker’s shoes have no heels.
• Work is twice done by the man in a hurry.
• A dog by your side is better than brother miles away.
• A wise man can laugh at his jokes.
• Debts are like women, once you have them you can’t get rid of them.
• If a man would live in peace, he should be blind, deaf, and dumb.
• Heaven is at the feet of mothers.
• Gold bears more gold.
• He gives a party with bath-water.
• A beggar will always be a beggar even if they give him the whole world as a gift.
• Bravery without foresight is like a blind horse.
• A snake can change its skin but not its disposition.
• The tongue of men is the whip of God.

The Islamic Republic of Iran

Iran also known as Persia, is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered to the northwest by Armenia and Azerbaijan; with Kazakhstan and Russia across the Caspian Sea; to the northeast by Turkmenistan; to the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; to the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; and to the west by Turkey and Iraq. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2 (636,372 sq mi), it is the second-largest nation in the Middle East and the 18th-largest in the world. With 78.4 million inhabitants, Iran is the world’s 17th most populous nation. It is the only country that has both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. Iran has long been of geostrategic importance because of its central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz. ~ An excerpt from Wikipedia

Persian, also known as Farsi, is the is the official language of Iran.

Tehran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With a population of around 8.4 million in the city and 14 million in the wider metropolitan area,Tehran is Iran’s largest city and urban area, the largest city in Western Asia and one of the largest three cities in the Middle East (along with Istanbul and Cairo).

The national anthem of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Lyrics ( English)

The light in the eyes of the believers in justice
Bahman is the zenith of our faith.
Your message, O Imam, of independence, freedom,
is imprinted on our souls.
O Martyrs! Your clamours echo in the ears of time
Enduring, continuing, and eternal,
The Islamic Republic of Iran!