African quotes

                                                                         

                                                                                          HONESTY

1. Money does not announce how it is earned but whereas properly earned money appreciates, improperly earned money depreciates.
2. The bottom of wealth is sometimes a dirty thing to behold.
3. Rather than tell a lie to help a friend, it is better to assist him in paying the fine for his offense

   THOUGHTFULNESS

   1. A fowl does not forget where it lays it eggs.
   2. The habit of thinking is the habit of gaining strength.
   3. It is one word of advice that one needs to give to a wise man, and that word keeps multiplying in his mind.
   4. Does a man not know when he has pepper in his eyes? If we forget yesterday, how shall we remember tomorrow.
   5. Thoughts and dreams are the foundation of our being.
   6. We are what our thinking makes us.

   GENEROSITY/SHARING

   1. It is an unthinking man who achieves prosperity, and then finds with time, that his body can no longer pass through the door.
   2. When an only kolanut is presented with love, it carries with it more value than might otherwise be associated with a whole pod of several kolanuts.
   3. The man who remembers others, remembers also his creator.
   4. The bird that remembers its flockmates, never missed the way.
   5. When a dying man cries, it is not because of where he is going which he knows nothing about, but because of what he wishes he would have done in the world he is leaving behind.
   6. The head could not have got to where it is now if it did not give

      HUMILITY

      1. A performing masquerade who tries too hard to outclass his colleagues may expose his anus.
      2. It is from a small seed that the giant Iroko tree has its beginning.
      3. A family name is not cooked and eaten, one's life is the thing.
      4. A good name is better than gold.
      5. He who is courteous is not a fool.
      6. The fowl perspires, but the feathers do not allow us to see the perspiration

         GREED

         1. Those who are carrying elephants home on their heads, need not use their toes to dig up crickets on the way.
         2. One can only try to get what one can from the head of an elephant, no one ever carries it home.
         3. The alcohol that is insufficient for a whole town ought not to intoxicate one man.
         4. The leech that does not let go even when it is filled, dies on the dry land.
         5. A bag that says it will not take more, and a traditional doctor who says he would not leave anything behind are both sure to suffer

            GOOD BEHAVIOR

            1. If a man is not clean and smooth, there is nothing he can really do about pride.
            2. Even an old woman may run when a goat carries her snuff-box.
            3. A man who is advised and he takes it, is still a man who acts from his own free will.
            4. When a ripe fruit sees an honest man, it drops.
            5. It is one person in a street that kills a dog and the street is named a street of dog killers.
            6. When a fowl gets to a new town, it stands on one leg until it knows that it is a town where people stand on their two legs.
            7. When a face is sullen it remains there to be seen on its owner.
            8. When a woman cannot have good palm-nuts to give her rich oil, she still has to maintain decency in order to remain one of those that sell good quality oil.
            9. A man who has one finger pointing at another has three pointing towards himself.
            10. A man who eases himself in public, gives cause to others to despise him.
            11. The man who is honored, has first honored himself.
            12. Greatness and beauty do not belong to the gods alone.
            13. Anyone who urinates in a stream should be warned because any of his relatives may drink from the water.
            14. A person who does not bathe, must know it of himself that he is dirty.
            15. Antagonism is not good for fowls, and it is not good for goats; worse still, it is not good for human beings.
            16. Our examples are like seeds on a windy day, they spread far and wide.
            17. A clay pot of water is never hot-tempered.
            18. A person who picks something and decides to make it his own, ought to think how he would feel if he was the person who lost the property he picked.
            19. He who is called a man must behave like a man.
            20. 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.
            21. One must have to wait till the evening of one's life time to know what gratitude to pay to one's guardian spirit

                CONSEQUENCES

                1. A man who is advised and he takes it, is still a man who acts from his own free will.
                2. 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.
                3. Sometimes the rain might force a man more than once to seek shelter under the same tree.
                4. When the roots of a tree begin to decay, it spreads death to the branches.
                5. It is the fear of what tomorrow may bring that makes the tortoise to carry his house along with him wherever he goes.
                6. He who digs a pit for others must invariably fall into it

                   PEACE

                   1. Let's fight, let's fight, no one knows whom fighting would favor.
                   2. Two men quarreling do not share the same seat on a canoe.
                   3. To have no enemies is equivalent to wealth.
                   4. If the owner of two adjacent farms cannot be friends, then they must wait till their next reincarnation to be able to make friends.
                   5. Whoever says "let's fight" does not know who will be victorious.
                   6. When a man finds that he was wrong to have refused to eat, he should leave his anger and play a harp to call for harmony.
                   7. Without retaliation evils would one day become extinct from the world.
                   8. A spacious ground is the right place to demonstrate one's skill in wrestling