• One does not know the happiness of a dog without a tail.
• The goat says the mouth that does not chew smells.
• Our people say the fowl that is new to a village stands on one leg.
• Our elders say that as the sun rises, so it must set.
• Our people say the entrails of the crocodile are not brought out in public.
• It is richness that tells what poverty is.
• That which is safely in the belly is never shared with some other person
• The wise fish knows that the beautiful worm that looks so easy to swallow has a sharp hook attached to it.
• The death that will kill a man begins as an appetite.
• The wise man controls his anger, because anger is a spoiler.
• Arguments out of the mouth of a pretty face are unanswerable
• They say since it is in the minds of men that the plans of wars are drawn and wars begin, it is in the minds of men that the settlement or the defences of peace must be constructed.
• To be in love with someone is to forgive each other always.
• To be in love is to be involved always.
• Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.
• They say love is like measles; every child has to go through it.
• A woman is like a ball; once a ball is thrown, no one can predict where it will bounce.
• A woman is like a cloth in the market stall; many people price and touch it, but you cannot predict who the final buyer will be.
• You cannot give a law to lovers because love is a greater law unto itself.
• You know absence is to love what water is to fire.
• Dead men cannot fall in love.
• They say we come into this world in the middle of a war, a war that is never won.
• Experience is only a name for our mistakes.
• In the village, the strength of a man is judged, not from the art of boxing or whatever, but from his mastery of wrestling.
• Nobody asks from where a married woman gets her pregnancy.
• When elders are in the market place, the head of a child on the mother’s back is not allowed to droop.
• He, who raises a fallen tree that is rotting, must be ready for unwholesome sights.
• No matter how bad the news is, it does not burst the eardrums.
• They say no matter how hard the snail may try, it cannot shed its shell.
• My people say if the eye is patient enough, it will see the nose.
• Our people say the water that you will drink never flows past you.
• As you make your bed, so you shall lie on it.
• You don’t fall the tree whose shade protects you.
• You can tell a blind man that there is not enough oil in the soup, but you cannot tell him that there is not enough salt or pepper in that soup.
Source: Ayakoroma, Barclays. Once Upon A Dream. Lagos: Mace Books, 2006.