African Proverbs About Wisdom

Every saying in the archive filed under wisdom: 22 proverbs, 5 quotes, 1 short story. 2 of them carry a written explanation of what it means; the rest are being added over time.

They come from Nigeria (6), Guinea (4), Kenya (2), Tanzania (1) and Senegal (1). 7 have no recorded country and are shown simply as African proverbs — the archive does not guess at an origin it cannot support.

Named writers and speakers on this subject include Chinua Achebe (2), Nelson Mandela (1) and William H Barker (1).

A few from this collection:

• If you follow the elephant, you never get entangled in the forest.
• What the old man sees sitting down, the young man cannot see standing on a tree.
• A wise person will always find a way.

Sayings here often sit under other subjects too — most often Knowledge, Age, Problem, Fool and Wealth.

Or see every subject in the archive.