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Kenyan Proverbs (051-100)

How easy it is to defeat people who
do not kindle fire for themselves.

If a girl sits badly, it is up to her mother to cover her thighs.

If the rhythm of the drum beat changes,
the dance step must adapt.

If you refuse directions from an elder,
you will walk until sunset.

If you have no teeth, do not break the clay cooking pot.

If you educate a woman, you have educated a population.

If you don't eat, you can't give blessing.

If you provoke a rattlesnake,
you must be prepared to be bitten by it .

Ingratitude is sooner or later fatal to its author.

It is not possible to avoid a slippery home compound.

It is obvious when you receive a visitor
and you cook for him or her you will eat too.

Leave bad things, talk peace.

Let dogs sleep, otherwise if anything
done against them is a problem.

Members of the same family are open
to each other and can discuss anything.

Misery loves company.

No matter how early one awakes,
the sun does not rise first.

No child should be babied while another
is offered to the hyena to bite.

No person is an island.

One who relates with a corrupt person
likewise gets corrupted.

One in the woodpile does not laugh
at the one in the fire.

One person is thin porridge;
two people are soup;
three people are a lump.

Only a medicine man gets rich by sleeping.

Only someone else can scratch your back.

Regular work tires a woman but totally wrecks a man.

Rumours generate misunderstandings.

Slowly, slowly, porridge goes into the gourd.

Termites cause death, damage, and great harm to white ants.

The possessor may become dispossessed.

The venomous snake cannot be seen in the Savannah.

The hyena with a cub does not eat
all the available food.

The one who milks the cow is not the same person
as the one who removes ticks from a cow.

The chaser and the one who is chased get tired.

The eye is a coward.

The one with many uncles slept hungry.

The fire burns the fire maker.

The devil turns against its friend.

The bush in which you hide has eyes.

The blame of the antelope is on the hunter.

The greedy one swells the stomach.

The eyes of the in-law belittle what they have seen.

The broken plate cannot be rejoined.

The thorn in your foot is temporarily appeased, but it is still in.

The fool hid what would eat him.

The bull doesn’t bellow when it sleeps.

The lame knows how to fall.

The man may be the head of the home;
the wife is the heart.

The teeth of a man serve as a fence.

The river swells with the contribution of the small streams.

There is no hyena without a friend.

There is no better mirror than a best friend.

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