South African Proverbs and Sayings
73 South African sayings collected from South Africa — 6 proverbs, 66 quotes, 1 short story.
About South African sayings here
This page collects every saying in the archive recorded as coming from South Africa: 6 proverbs, 66 quotes, 1 short story. 1 of them carry a written explanation of what it means; the rest are being added over time.
The named voices here are Nelson Mandela (45), Desmond Tutu (8), Miriam Makeba (6) and Nadine Gordimer (2). The proverbs are left unattributed, because a proverb belongs to the people who repeat it rather than to whoever first said it.
The subjects they return to most often are Politics, Freedom, Peace, Leadership and Love.
A few from this collection:
- A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
- A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.
- After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
See also all countries, every proverb in the archive, or browse by subject.