Òwe on Ọmọlúàbí, the Complete Person and Moral Formation
Forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on the ọmọlúàbí ideal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
intermediatehigh·
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Forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on the ọmọlúàbí ideal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Ọmọlúàbí is conventionally analysed as ọmọ tí olú ìwà bí, the child begotten by the chief of character, and it names the Yorùbá ideal of the fully socialised, well-brought-up person: someone with command of language, who shows respect and consideration to others, keeps their word in the ordinary social sense, behaves with decorum in public, works honestly, and is answerable to their household's reputation. That etymology is traditional and widely repeated; it is a received analysis rather than a demonstrated one. yoruba-owe-proverbs already collects the classic definitional proverb, Ọmọlúàbí kì í ṣe ohun ìtìjú, "a person of good character does not do shameful things," and this file does not repeat it. Ọmọlúàbí is a composite ideal, not a single virtue, and the proverbs that speak to it are scattered across every part of the source collection used here rather than concentrated in one.
Ọmọlúàbí has no single dedicated section in Oyekan Owomoyela's digitised The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yorùbá Proverb Treasury, hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries Electronic Text Center . Owomoyela organises his material into six thematic parts (humility and self-restraint; perspicaciousness and worldly wisdom; caution, moderation and prudence; perseverance, industry and fortitude; consistency, honesty and reliability; consideration and kindness), and the pieces of the ọmọlúàbí ideal not already claimed by this batch's other files are distributed across all six. This file draws from all six parts rather than one, and selects only entries where decorum and public comportment, respect for other people and their boundaries, discretion or tact, the honouring of social commitments, industriousness treated as a moral rather than a purely economic trait, or the household's stake in how a person turns out is the actual point of the proverb. Where an entry below is marked , the Yorùbá text and the quoted idiomatic English are Owomoyela's, reproduced as printed. The literal glosses and the Used when framing are the compiler's own, built from the Yorùbá, except where Owomoyela's usage note is quoted directly. That digitised collection draws from the same fieldwork as his print Yoruba Proverbs (Nebraska, 2005) .
This file does not repeat proverbs already collected in owe-iwa-character (character as substance, beauty against character, where character shows), owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity (truth-telling, lying, testimony and impartial judgement), owe-patience-restraint-temper (patience and anger as such), or owe-pride-humility-self-knowledge (self-overestimation, self-knowledge, humility as a feeling). It also avoids the household-structure and lineage material proper to owe-family-lineage-compound and owe-children-parenthood-inheritance: a proverb about training toward a moral standard is kept here only where the standard, not the family structure or the mechanics of parenthood, is the point. Before finalising, every entry below was checked against the Yorùbá text of all six of those files to rule out accidental duplication.
Literal: A kì í fi ìka ro etí one does-not with finger clean ear, ká fi ro imú and use-it clean nose, ká wá tún fi ta ehín and then again use-it pick teeth.
Idiomatic: "One does not use one's finger to clean one's ear passages, use it to pick one's nose, and then use it to pick one's teeth."
Meaning: A single body part is not run through every private task in public without regard for who is watching.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should always behave with decorum"
Notes: The proverb builds by accumulation, three actions with the same finger in sequence, so that the impropriety compounds rather than simply being stated once. This is as close as the collection comes to a bare etiquette rule, and it is included precisely because ọmọlúàbí decorum operates at exactly this granular, bodily level, not only in grand conduct.
Literal: A kì í jayé ọba one does-not enjoy the-majesty of-a-king ká ṣu sára and defecate on-oneself.
Idiomatic: "One does not so luxuriate in one's majesty that one shits on oneself."
Meaning: No degree of elevated status excuses a lapse in basic self-command.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Lack of moderation and decorum will bring disgrace to even the most elevated person"
Notes: The crudeness of the image is deliberate and is common in this register of Yorùbá proverb, which uses frank bodily comedy to puncture any assumption that rank alone excuses want of self-governance. Compare entry 3, which makes the same point about an elder rather than a king.
Literal: Àgbà kì í fàárọ̀ an-elder does-not in-early-morning họ ìdí scratch buttocks kó má kan funfun without it touching something-white.
Idiomatic: "A grown person does not scratch his buttocks in the early morning without showing some whiteness."
Meaning: An adult who has not yet properly dressed or composed himself for the day should not be caught in that state by others.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Improper behaviour brings disgrace"
Notes: The proverb assumes an outdoor compound where an adult can genuinely be seen half-dressed by neighbours at first light, so the warning is practical as well as moral: decorum has to be maintained before an audience is expected to be present, not only once it arrives.
Literal: Àgbà kì í ṣerée an-elder does-not play-a-game kí-ló-bá-yìí-wá [that provokes] "what brought this about?"
Idiomatic: "An elderly person does not engage in the type of play that provokes the comment, 'What brought all this about?'"
Meaning: An elder's play, like an elder's anger or grief, should never be so extreme that onlookers are startled into asking what happened.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Elders should show decorum"
Notes: The rhetorical question is quoted as onlookers' actual speech, a construction this corpus's other files note is common: the proverb dramatises the reaction rather than simply naming the fault. Compare entry 5, which pairs with this one in Owomoyela's own cross-reference.
Literal: Àgbàlagbà kì í yọ ayọ̀-ọ an-elder does-not rejoice kí-ló-báyìí-wá [that provokes] "what brought this about?"
Idiomatic: "An elder does not rejoice in a manner that would provoke, 'What brought all this about?'"
Meaning: Even joy, in an elder, must stay within bounds an onlooker would recognise as fitting.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Moderation and decorum in everything"
Notes: Owomoyela cross-references this directly to entry 4, and the pairing (play, then joy) shows the same formula, an extreme reaction provoking a startled bystander's question, applied twice to two different emotional registers, which suggests it was a productive template rather than a single fixed saying.
Literal: Àgbà kì í ṣorò an-elder does-not perform-ritual bí èwe like a-youth.
Idiomatic: "An elderly person does not perform rituals like a youth."
Meaning: The manner in which a person carries out a public or ceremonial duty should be scaled to their station.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The elder's performance should be commensurate with his station and status"
Notes: Orò here covers ritual observance broadly, and the proverb is not about competence but about register: an elder is expected to perform the same act with a different gravity than a youth would, and collapsing that difference is itself the fault.
Literal: Àgbàlagbà kì í ṣe an-elder does-not act lágbalàgba in-an-elder-unbecoming-manner.
Idiomatic: "An elder should not behave in an unbecoming manner."
Meaning: Elderly status carries its own standard of conduct, breach of which is a distinct fault from ordinary misbehaviour.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should behave according to one's status"
Notes: The Yorùbá turns the noun àgbàlagbà, elder, directly into a manner-adverb naming its own violation, a compression English cannot match without unpacking it into a full clause.
Literal: Àgbàlagbà tó wẹ̀wù àṣejù an-elder who wears-the-garment-of excess, ẹ̀tẹ́ ni yó fi rí disgrace is-what he-will thereby find.
Idiomatic: "An elder who wears the garment of immoderation will find disgrace because of it."
Meaning: Excess, figured as a garment put on, is what exposes an elder to shame.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Immoderation brings disgrace"
Notes: Wẹ̀wù, to wear a garment, applied to àṣejù, excess, treats immoderation as a chosen costume rather than an involuntary lapse, which sharpens the proverb's judgement: the elder is not simply unlucky but has dressed himself in his own disgrace.
Literal: Àgbà tó bú ọmọdé an-elder who insults a-youth fi èébú-u rẹ̀ tọrọ gives his-insult as-a-gift.
Idiomatic: "An elder who insults a youth makes a present of his own insult."
Meaning: An elder's insult to a junior does not diminish the junior; it is simply handed over, a loss to the giver rather than to the recipient.
Used when: Only those who show respect for others may expect respect in return .
Notes: Tọrọ, to beg or to offer as a gift, frames the insult as a transferred object rather than an injury inflicted, which quietly denies the elder the standing to insult downward at all: what he meant as an attack becomes, grammatically, an unsolicited present.
Literal: Àgbà tó fi ara-a rẹ̀ féwe an-elder who gives himself over to-youths lèwe ḿbú is-whom youths insult.
Idiomatic: "It is an elder who delivers himself unto youths that the youth will insult."
Meaning: Respect withdrawn by an elder from his own conduct is respect the young will also withdraw.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one wants to be respected, one should respect oneself"
Notes: Owomoyela cross-references this directly with entry 10, and together the pair states that disrespect runs in both directions across the elder-junior line: entry 10 concerns an elder disrespecting a junior, this one an elder who has abandoned his own dignity and so forfeits the junior's.
Literal: Àgbàlagbà tí ò kí Ààrẹ an-elder who does-not greet the-Ààrẹ ńfi okùn sin ara-a rẹ̀ is-fitting a-rope for himself.
Idiomatic: "An elder who does not greet the Ààrẹ tries a 'hanging' rope for size."
Meaning: Withholding a customary greeting from someone owed one is not a small omission; it invites a consequence as serious as the offence against protocol.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must avoid actions that will place one at grave risk"
Notes: Ààrẹ is a title of command, so the withheld greeting is not simply rudeness but a breach with the person who holds authority to punish it; the proverb links a small failure of courtesy directly to mortal risk rather than to mere disapproval.
Literal: Àgbàlagbà tó ńgun ọ̀pẹ an-elder who climbs a-palm-tree, bó bá já lulẹ̀ if he falls to-the-ground ó dọ̀run it-becomes heaven.
Idiomatic: "An elder who climbs palm-trees: if he crashes from the tree he will find himself in heaven."
Meaning: Certain physical undertakings are simply unfitting for an elder to attempt, whatever his residual strength.
Used when: An elder should know better than to climb palm-trees; one should not court danger .
Notes: "Finding himself in heaven" is the standard Yorùbá indirection for death, used throughout this corpus; pairing it flatly with an ordinary farm task rather than with any dramatic danger is what makes the warning land as social criticism of the attempt itself, not only concern for the elder's safety.
Literal: Ará Ìbàdàn kì í ságun people-of-Ìbàdàn do-not flee-war; à ó rìn sẹ́hìn ni wọ́n ńwí "we-will walk backward" is-what-they say.
Idiomatic: "Ibadan people do not run from war; what they say is, 'We will fall back a little.'"
Meaning: A community that prizes its dignity finds a face-saving form of words for an act it cannot avoid but does not want named plainly.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There are ways of avoiding battle without seeming to do so"
Notes: The proverb is about self-presentation under pressure rather than about combat as such: it documents a community managing its own reputation through a euphemism it has agreed on collectively, which is a public, group-level version of the individual decorum this section otherwise treats.
Literal: Àgbà kì í gbọ́ an-elder does-not hear "Lù ú" "Beat him!" lẹ́nu àgbà in-the-mouth of-an-elder.
Idiomatic: "One never hears 'Beat him/her up' in the mouth of an elder."
Meaning: An elder's role in conflict is to resolve it, and urging violence is a betrayal of that role regardless of who is in the right.
Used when: Elders resolve disputes; they do not goad disputants on .
Notes: The proverb defines the elder's office by what speech is structurally excluded from it, not by a list of duties; an elder who speaks this way has stopped being an elder in the sense the proverb assumes, whatever their age.
Literal: A kì í mú oko lọ́nà one does-not take a-farm by-the-road ká ṣèmẹ́lẹ́ and neglect its-care; tajá tẹran ní ḿbúni both-dog and-goat would ridicule-one.
Idiomatic: "One does not farm a plot by the road and neglect its care; every dog and goat would ridicule one."
Meaning: Conduct visible to the community carries an obligation of care that conduct out of sight does not.
Used when: Never expose yourself to insult by behaving badly in public view .
Notes: The mocking animals stand in for public opinion generally: even creatures with no stake in the matter register the lapse, which is the proverb's way of saying that visibility itself raises the standard a person is held to.
Literal: A kì í fi orí wé oríi Mokúṣiré one does-not compare one's-fortune to Mokúṣiré's; bí Mokú kú láàárọ̀ if Mokú dies in-the-morning a jí lálẹ́ he wakes at-night.
Idiomatic: "One does not liken one's fortune to Mokúṣiré's; if Mokú dies in the morning, he resurrects at night."
Meaning: Imitating another person's exceptional capacity, without having it oneself, is a category error, not ambition.
Used when: Never emulate people who know tricks you don't .
Notes: The proverb respects the boundary between what one person can do and what another can only imitate; misjudging that boundary is treated as a fault of discernment rather than of will, distinct from the pride-and-overreach proverbs of owe-pride-humility-self-knowledge, since the emphasis here is on the specific other person's unmatched, unshared capacity rather than on the imitator's general self-estimate.
Literal: A-báni-gbé kì í yáná one-who-lodges-with-another does-not warm-himself-by-the-fire; a-bọ̀rìṣà kì í sun òtútù one-who-serves-a-deity does-not sleep in-the-cold; ẹyin gẹ́gẹ́ kì í gbé àwùjọ́ a-delicate egg does-not live in-a-crowd; ilé kannáà ni wọ́n kọ́ fún àwọn mẹ́tẹ̀ẹ̀ta the-same house was-built for the-three-of-them.
Idiomatic: "A guest does not warm himself by the fire; a priest or priestess does not sleep in the cold; a delicate egg does not live in a crowd; the same house was built for all three."
Meaning: Three quite different beings share one rule, that each must find the specific accommodation proper to its own condition inside a shared space.
Used when: Know yourself and your place .
Notes: The three cases, a social guest, a ritual specialist, and a fragile object, are deliberately heterogeneous, which generalises the claim beyond any one of them: knowing one's place is not a rule for guests specifically, or for priests specifically, but a structural feature of any shared house.
Literal: A-bánijẹun-bí-aláìmọra one-who-eats-with-another-as-if-without-self-restraint, ó bu òkèlè he breaks a-morsel bí ẹ̀gbọ́n ìyá ẹ̀ like his-mother's-elder-sibling.
Idiomatic: "He-who-eats-with-one-without-self-restraint; he breaks off morsels like his mother's senior."
Meaning: Sharing a meal with someone senior to oneself calls for a visibly restrained hand, and taking large portions as though one were the senior party is itself the offence.
Used when: When eating in company one should be restrained .
Notes: Owomoyela's own note adds the exception explicitly: a man eating with his younger sister's child need show no such restraint, which makes the rule relational rather than absolute, exactly the kind of station-sensitive courtesy the ọmọlúàbí ideal expects a person to read correctly in the moment.
Literal: Àgùnbánirọ̀ one-taller-than-another ní ńfojúdini is-who shows-disregard.
Idiomatic: "It is the person taller than another who shows no respect for the other."
Meaning: A physical or circumstantial advantage tempts its holder toward disrespect of whoever lacks it.
Used when: Even in a company, each person should know his/her relative station .
Notes: The proverb names height as the pretext rather than the true cause, since no real authority attaches to stature; it is an observation about how an accidental advantage gets misread as licence, which is exactly the failure the household is supposed to train a child out of.
Literal: Aláṣọ àlà the-wearer-of white-cloth kì í jókòó does-not sit sísọ̀ elépo at-the-stall of-the-palm-oil-seller.
Idiomatic: "A person dressed in white does not sit at the stall of a palm-oil seller."
Meaning: A person should not place themselves somewhere their own condition makes them vulnerable to an entirely predictable mishap.
Used when: One should not expose oneself to abuse or danger .
Notes: This is self-regarding rather than other-regarding prudence, but it belongs with the decorum cluster because the fault, like several above, is failing to read a situation correctly before acting in it; a stained white garment in public is exactly the kind of small, avoidable disgrace this file's decorum entries return to repeatedly.
Literal: Àì-jọnilójú lọ́sàn-án not-being-agreeable-to-one by-day ní ḿmúni jarunpá is-what-makes-one toss-restlessly luni lóru and strike one at-night.
Idiomatic: "Lack of regard for a person during the day makes one kick the person during the night as one tosses restlessly in sleep."
Meaning: Disregard shown to someone by day resurfaces, involuntarily, in how one treats them even asleep.
Used when: Familiarity breeds contempt .
Notes: The claim is closer to a mechanism than a moral judgement: contempt is described as leaking out through an unguarded channel, sleep, which the person cannot consciously police, making it diagnostic evidence of a daytime attitude rather than a separate nighttime fault.
Literal: Àì-kúkú-joye not-taking-up-a-title-at-all, ó sàn ju is-better-than, "Ẹnuù mi ò ká ìlú" "my-word does-not encompass the-town" lọ exceeding.
Idiomatic: "Not-assuming-the-position-of-ruler-at-all is far better than, 'My word is not heeded by the people.'"
Meaning: Declining a responsibility one cannot discharge is a smaller failure than accepting it and then having one's authority go unheeded.
Used when: A person who does not assume a responsibility is better off than a person who takes it on and fails to fulfill it .
Notes: This sits beside the industriousness cluster below as its counterweight: the ọmọlúàbí ideal expects a person to take up real obligations, but this proverb marks the limit, that taking up a public role one cannot actually carry is worse than not taking it up at all.
Literal: Àkíìjẹ́ refusal-to-answer-greetings mú òrìṣà níyì gives the-deity dignity.
Idiomatic: "Refusal-to-acknowledge-salutations enhances the god's dignity."
Meaning: Withholding an ordinary courtesy is a genuine source of standing for a deity, precisely because it marks the deity as set apart from ordinary social exchange.
Used when: Distancing oneself from ordinary people lends one prestige .
Notes: The proverb is included with a caution: it describes what confers standing on a god, not what is recommended for a person, and its usual human application is closer to a warning than an endorsement, since a person who withholds greetings the way a deity does risks the fate described in entry 14 rather than dignity.
Literal: Àwíyé ní ḿmú ọ̀ràn yéni explicitness is-what makes a-matter clear; ọ̀ọ́dúnrún okùn la fi ńsin ẹgbẹ̀ta three-hundred strings is-what-we-use to-string six-hundred, bí a ò bá là á if we do-not explain-it kì í yeni it-is-never-clear.
Idiomatic: "Explicitness makes matters clear; it takes three-hundred strings to string six hundred; unless one explains it, no one understands."
Meaning: Clarity is not a courtesy but a requirement: an unexplained fact stays opaque regardless of how obvious it is to the speaker.
Used when: Too much economy in speech leads to confusion .
Notes: The cowrie-string arithmetic is exact and functions as proof rather than decoration, since counting cowries genuinely does require knowing the string-to-total ratio; the image argues that explicitness is a technical necessity, not merely good manners.
Literal: Àwíyé nIfẹ̀ ńfọ̀ explicitly is-how-Ifẹ̀ speaks; gbangba lorò ńpẹran openly is-how-Orò kills-animals.
Idiomatic: "Explicitly is the way Ifẹ̀ speaks; it is openly that Orò kills animals."
Meaning: Whatever must be said or done should be said or done without concealment, on the model of two respected institutions that operate this way.
Used when: Whatever one has to say, one should say without mincing words .
Notes: Citing the sacred city of Ifẹ̀ and the Orò cult as models of open dealing is a deliberate escalation: if even a masked ancestral cult, whose whole apparatus involves secrecy and restriction, conducts its central act openly, the proverb argues, ordinary speech has still less excuse for evasion.
Literal: Àpèjúwe description lalágbẹ̀dẹ ńrọ̀ is-what-the-blacksmith forges-from.
Idiomatic: "The blacksmith manufactures from a description."
Meaning: A craftsman, and by extension anyone asked to help, can only work from what is actually told to him.
Used when: Unless a person speaks his or her mind, others cannot know what the person has in it .
Notes: The proverb reframes reticence as a practical failure rather than a private virtue: withholding what one wants is not discretion but a way of guaranteeing the wrong outcome, which distinguishes it sharply from the entries below on keeping one's own counsel where silence, not disclosure, is what serves the person.
Literal: Amọ̀rànbini Ọ̀yọ́ people-who-know-the-answer-yet-ask, natives-of-Ọ̀yọ́, bí o bá gbé kete lérí if you carry a-water-pot on-your-head, wọn a ní oko lò ńlọ tàbí odò they-say are-you-going to-the-farm or to-the-stream.
Idiomatic: "People-who-know-the-answer-yet-ask-the-question, natives of Ọyọ, if they see you carrying a water-pot they ask whether you are on your way to the farm or the stream."
Meaning: Asking a question whose answer is already visible is a specific, mockable social fault distinct from genuine inquiry.
Used when: If the answer is plain to see, one does not ask the question .
Notes: Naming a whole town, Ọ̀yọ́, as habitually guilty of this fault is a common device for fixing a type through a place-name rather than a person's name; the proverb treats needless questioning as wasted, performative speech rather than as a harmless conversational habit.
Literal: Odídẹrẹ́ ẹyẹ òkun the-parrot is-bird of-the-sea, àlùkò ẹyẹ ọ̀sà the-kingfisher is-bird of-the-lagoon; bí a bá jẹun gbé if we eat-and-carry-off, ká má jẹ̀ẹ́ùn gbé let-us-not eat-and-carry-off [our promise].
Idiomatic: "The parrot is a bird of the sea, and the kingfisher a bird of the lagoon; even though we might forget that we once partook in the food, let us never forget what we covenanted."
Meaning: Distance and time may dull the memory of a shared meal, but a promise sealed at it must survive both.
Used when: However far we may roam, and however long, one should never forget promises made .
Notes: The two named birds, each fixed to its own habitat, set up the theme of separation before the proverb's real subject, the promise, arrives; the pairing argues that geographic distance is a legitimate excuse for forgetting incidental things but never the thing that was actually promised.
Literal: Odò kì í kún the-river does-not swell bo ẹja lójú to-cover a-fish's eyes.
Idiomatic: "A river does not so swell as to be over the head of the fish."
Meaning: Whatever grows around a person who belongs there does not overwhelm them, because it is native to their element.
Used when: A statement that an adversary at his most powerful can never pose a threat to one .
Notes: Kept here for its bearing on discretion in a wider sense, that a person who stays within their proper element is not endangered by its ordinary changes, a claim structurally close to the household-training proverbs below, where staying inside one's formed competence is what keeps a person safe.
Literal: Ẹní gbé àrùn pamọ́ whoever hides a-disease kọjá ore oníṣègùn is-beyond the-help of-a-healer.
Idiomatic: "Whoever conceals a disease is beyond help from a doctor."
Meaning: Concealing a real need from the person positioned to meet it defeats the very purpose of seeking help.
Used when: People in need of help should not conceal the fact .
Notes: The proverb targets a specific, narrow failure of candour rather than dishonesty in general: it is about disclosure owed to a helper, not about truthfulness as a virtue, and belongs here rather than in the truthfulness file because its subject is the social relationship of asking for and receiving aid.
Literal: Ẹnìkan kì í yọ̀ a-person does-not slip kí ilẹ̀ ó sẹ́ for-the-earth to-deny [responsibility].
Idiomatic: "When a person slips, the earth may not deny responsibility or knowledge."
Meaning: Whatever one does, one must be willing to own it rather than displace responsibility onto something or someone else.
Used when: For whatever one does, one should be willing to accept responsibility .
Notes: The earth is personified only to be denied a defence, which is the proverb's method: even an entity with genuine grounds to disclaim involvement, since a slip is in one sense the ground's doing, is refused that escape, sharpening the demand that a person accept responsibility for their own conduct without qualification.
Literal: Ìdẹra ease ò kan àgbà does-not concern age.
Idiomatic: "Ease has nothing to do with age."
Meaning: Comfort and standing are earned by effort, not simply accumulated by growing older.
Used when: Industry pays off more surely than longevity .
Notes: The proverb denies a natural expectation, that age alone should bring ease, and replaces it with effort as the actual mechanism, which is the same logic that runs through the industriousness cluster below: nothing but work converts time into standing.
Literal: Igbe kí-ni-ngó-jẹ-sùn the-cry "what-shall-I-eat-for-supper" ní ḿpọ̀lẹ is-what kills-the-lazy-person.
Idiomatic: "The cry 'What shall I eat for supper?' is what kills the lazy person."
Meaning: Complaint substitutes for effort in the lazy person, and the substitution itself is what destroys them.
Used when: The lazy person will rather put his/her efforts into lamenting his/her fate than into gainful employment .
Notes: Igbe, a cry or shout, is quoted as reported speech, the standard device this corpus notes for dramatising a type through their own words; the lazy person's energy is not absent, it is simply misdirected into lament instead of labour.
Literal: Iṣẹ́ ọ̀gẹrọ̀ light-effort work lọ̀lẹ́ mọ̀-ọ́ ṣe is-what-the-lazy-person knows-how to-do; kò jẹ́ wá iṣẹ́ agbára he-does-not seek work of-strength.
Idiomatic: "The lazy person knows how to do only things that call for little effort; he/she never seeks out work that demands strength."
Meaning: Laziness is characterised not by total idleness but by a consistent preference for whatever costs the least effort.
Used when: Said of those who always seek the easiest way out of a dilemma .
Notes: The proverb is precise about what laziness actually is in this ethical vocabulary: not the absence of activity but a persistent selection bias toward ease, which makes it a diagnosable pattern rather than a single lapse.
Literal: Iṣẹ́-ajé-ò-gbé-bòji work-for-a-living-does-not-stay-in-the-shade, ọmọ ẹ̀ Òjíkùtù its child is-named First-up-at-dawn.
Idiomatic: "Gainful-work-does-not-keep-to-the-shade; his/her child is named First-up-at-dawn."
Meaning: Real, income-producing work requires leaving comfort behind, and a household that takes this seriously names its children accordingly.
Used when: Success in life calls for self-sacrifice .
Notes: The compressed epithet Iṣẹ́-ajé-ò-gbé-bòji is treated as a personal name in the second clause, and Yorùbá naming is genuinely descriptive of household circumstance, so the proverb is not inventing a fanciful example but pointing to a real naming practice that encodes the household's work ethic into the child's identity.
Literal: Iṣu ẹni one's-yam kì í fini pe ọmọdé does-not because-one is-called a-youth kó má ta refuse to-mature.
Idiomatic: "One's yam will not because one is only a youth refuse to grow to maturity."
Meaning: Youth is not an exemption from the results, or the demands, of one's own effort.
Used when: Even a youth can accomplish much if he/she makes an effort .
Notes: The proverb runs against the household-training proverbs elsewhere in this batch that treat the young as raw material still being formed; here a youth's labour is credited on the same terms as an adult's, which is the industriousness cluster's implicit argument that the moral weight of work does not wait for full maturity.
Literal: Kùtù-kùtù kì í jíni lẹ́ẹ̀mejì early-dawn does-not wake-one twice; kùtù-kùtù ní ńjẹ́ òwúrọ̀ early-dawn is-what-is-called morning; biri ní ńjẹ́ alẹ́ deep-darkness is-what-is-called night.
Idiomatic: "Early dawn does not wake one twice; early dawn is the morning; deep darkness is night."
Meaning: The morning's opportunity is single and non-repeating, and mistaking that fact only becomes clear once it is too late to act on it.
Used when: The morning comes only once; whoever wastes it will discover too late that night has fallen .
Notes: The proverb states two plain facts about the day, that dawn happens once and that night is night, as though they needed proving, which is precisely its rhetorical move: the obvious is restated to make the waste of it look as absurd as it actually is.
Literal: Ọ̀gá Ìwátà big-shot of-Ìwátà-town, eṣú ò mọ olóòótọ́ locusts do-not know the-honest-person; eṣú dé locusts arrive, eṣú jẹ oko olóore locusts eat the-farm of-the-generous-person.
Idiomatic: "Big shot of Ìwátà town, the locusts do not know who is honest; the locusts arrive and the locusts eat up the good person's farm."
Meaning: Disaster does not discriminate by moral merit, and a person's diligence on their own farm is no guarantee against a shared calamity.
Used when: Vandals care not which property belongs to good people and which to bad people .
Notes: Kept here for what it implies about the household's stake in outcome: the proverb is a corrective against reading every misfortune as evidence of a person's own failure of industry or virtue, a needed counterweight to the cluster of proverbs elsewhere that treat a person's troubles as self-caused.
Literal: Àgbẹ̀ gbóko a-farmer stays-on-the-farm róṣù and-sees the-moon.
Idiomatic: "A farmer stays on the farm and sees the moon."
Meaning: The conscientious farmer's day runs long enough to overtake nightfall.
Used when: The conscientious farmer spends long periods on the farm; persistence is the key to success .
Notes: The image is understated, a single observed fact, seeing the moon from the farm, standing in for the whole of sustained diligence; the restraint of the image is characteristic of this proverb's admiration for steady, unspectacular labour rather than dramatic effort.
Literal: Ìjẹkújẹ careless-eating kì í pa does-not kill ahanrandi the-worm-ahanrandi.
Idiomatic: "Careless eating does not kill the worm ahanrandi."
Meaning: Some creatures, or people, are simply immune to a particular carelessness that would ruin another.
Used when: One can do what one pleases without fear of repercussion .
Notes: Included here as a foil rather than an endorsement: the proverb is descriptive of an exceptional immunity, not a general licence, and its presence in the corpus is a reminder, consistent with yoruba-owe-proverbs's caution about contradiction, that Yorùbá proverb-making preserves outlier cases alongside its general rules rather than suppressing them.
Literal: Ẹgẹ́ ò ṣákìí the-ẹgẹ́-trap does-not fail-once, ẹní bá bọ́ sábẹ-ẹ rẹ̀ whoever falls beneath-it, a pa á kú pátá-pátá it kills-them completely.
Idiomatic: "The ẹgẹ́ trap never misses; whatever passes beneath it it strikes dead."
Meaning: A person or thing whose reliability is total can be counted on absolutely, without exception, to do exactly what is expected of it.
Used when: A certain person, or thing, can be relied upon to do what is expected of him, her, or it .
Notes: The image is mechanical rather than moral, a trap rather than a person, which is exactly the point: reliability at this pitch is treated as a property as fixed as a physical mechanism, the standard the ọmọlúàbí ideal sets for a person's word and conduct alike.
Literal: Ìjòkó là ḿbá eèbà seated is-how-we-find the-oil-pot.
Idiomatic: "The oil pot is ever found in a sitting position."
Meaning: Some things stay exactly where they are trusted to be, and that fixed reliability is itself worth admiring.
Used when: The constancy of the pot is worth emulating .
Notes: The domestic object stands for constancy of the plainest kind, being findable, unmoved, where one left it, and the proverb's brevity (four words in Yorùbá) matches the unremarkable steadiness it praises.
Literal: Igbó kannáà the-same forest lọdẹ ńdẹ is-where-a-hunter hunts.
Idiomatic: "It is in the same forest that a hunter hunts (or all hunters hunt)."
Meaning: A person stays within the domain of their trained competence, or, in Owomoyela's alternative reading, members of a shared calling hold themselves to a consistent, uniform standard of conduct.
Used when: One should stick to that which one knows. Or, the manners and behaviors of members of a fraternity should be consistent and uniform .
Notes: Owomoyela records both readings without choosing between them; either way the proverb is about consistency, staying inside the ground one has actually been formed to work, which is the closing note this section shares with the household-training proverbs immediately below.
Literal: Ẹ̀là lọ̀rọ̀ clarification is-what-statements-need; bí a ò bá là á if we do-not clarify-it rírú ní ńrú murkiness is-what-results.
Idiomatic: "Statements must be clarified; if they are not, they become muddy."
Meaning: An unclarified statement does not stay neutral; it actively degrades into confusion.
Used when: Ambiguous statements result in confusion .
Notes: Kept distinct from entry 27 because this one states the negative case, what happens by default when clarity is skipped, rather than the positive requirement; together the two proverbs bracket explicitness as both an active duty and an omission with a real cost.
Literal: Àdàbà ńpògèdè the-dove recites-incantations, ó rò pé ẹyẹlé ò gbọ́ thinking that the-pigeon does-not hear; ẹyẹlé gbọ́ the-pigeon hears, títiiri ló tiiri it-is-only-pretending-to-sleep that-it-is-doing.
Idiomatic: "The dove recites incantations, thinking that the pigeon cannot hear; the pigeon hears; it is only pretending to sleep."
Meaning: An apparently unguarded or passive party may in fact be alert and discerning, and misjudging that is itself a failure of discretion.
Used when: Never mistake a person's easygoing demeanor for cowardice or folly .
Notes: Kept here as a caution addressed to the reader of character rather than to the person being read: correctly judging another person's actual attentiveness, not simply their outward manner, is part of the same discernment the household is meant to cultivate.
Literal: A kì í pè é lẹ́rú one does-not call it a-slave, ká pè é lóbí and call it a-child-of-the-house.
Idiomatic: "One does not call it a slave and call it a child of the house."
Meaning: A person's or a relationship's status must be settled and named consistently, not held ambivalently between two incompatible descriptions.
Used when: One must be clear about one's attitude to a thing or person; ambivalence causes trouble .
Notes: This is a household proverb about the moral clarity owed to a dependent's actual standing, distinct from the lineage-and-inheritance material in owe-family-lineage-compound and owe-children-parenthood-inheritance: the point here is the consistency of the naming and treatment, not the kinship structure itself.
Literal: A kì í rí i one does-not see it ká tún sọ pé a ò ri mọ́ and then say that one does-not see-it again.
Idiomatic: "One does not see a thing and then say one does not see it."
Meaning: Having witnessed something, a person is bound to that witness and cannot later retract it for convenience.
Used when: Always stand by your word .
Notes: This is standing-by-one's-word in the social, testimonial sense, the durability of a person's account once given, rather than truth-telling in the abstract sense treated in owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity: the fault named is retraction and inconsistency, not falsehood as such.
Literal: Ojo díẹ̀ a-little cowardice, akin díẹ̀ a-little bravery; ìyà ní ńkó jẹni suffering is-what-it brings-to-eat.
Idiomatic: "A little cowardice, a little bravery; all it brings one is trouble."
Meaning: Wavering between two incompatible postures produces worse outcomes than committing firmly to either one.
Used when: One should decide whether one will be bold or cowardly; inconsistency in such matters results in suffering .
Notes: This closes the file's discretion-and-consistency thread on the same note entries 50 and 51 open with: the ọmọlúàbí standard is not that a person must always be bold, or always cautious, but that whichever posture is taken must be held consistently rather than mixed in a way that satisfies neither.
Forty-eight proverbs assembled from all six of Owomoyela's thematic parts describe a composite standard rather than a single virtue, and three things stand out that would not be visible reading any one of the source parts alone.
Decorum is graded by station, not applied as a flat rule. The largest cluster here concerns elders specifically: entries 3 through 15 repeat, with different images each time, that the standard of self-command rises with age and rank rather than staying constant. An elder's play, joy, ritual performance, and even his manner of falling from a palm tree are all held to a stricter accounting than a youth's equivalent conduct would be. This matches the logic already documented in owe-pride-humility-self-knowledge, where a minor titleholder must not display the airs appropriate to a king, but applies it specifically to the register of everyday bodily and social conduct rather than to pride as an attitude.
Discretion in this file is almost never about telling the truth. Where owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity collects proverbs about lying and its structural instability, the discretion cluster here (entries 27 through 35, 48 through 52) is concerned with a different social failure: withholding what should be said, retracting what was already witnessed, failing to warn a dependent before withdrawing support, or wavering between two postures instead of committing to one. None of these proverbs accuse anyone of falsehood. They describe a narrower and more mundane fault, inconsistency and evasiveness in ordinary dealings, which is exactly the terrain the truthfulness file's own sourcing note marks as outside its scope.
Industriousness is judged as a character trait with a moral vocabulary, not a productivity metric. The proverbs in the industriousness cluster do not measure output; they diagnose a pattern of avoidance, seeking only light work, complaining rather than acting, wasting the single occurrence of the morning, that they treat as continuous with laziness as a fault of character rather than as an economic misfortune. Read against owe-iwa-character's claim that character cannot be hidden and inevitably shows, the industriousness proverbs here supply one of the specific, everyday arenas, work itself, in which that showing happens, which is consistent with why Owomoyela scattered this material across his industry, consistency, and consideration sections rather than gathering it under any single heading.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about telling the truth, the mechanics of lying and self-deception, and the value placed on a person whose word is reliable.
Thirteen sourced Yorùbá proverbs on shame, disgrace and reputation, presented with the original, a literal gloss, and a named translation, honestly reflecting how thin this theme is in the digitised record available to this corpus.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on what age and seniority are owed, what they owe back, and the limits of both.
Forty-three Yorùbá proverbs on sùúrù, patience, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Fifty-five Yorùbá proverbs on pride, arrogance, humility, and the limits of what a person can know about themselves, each given with the original, a literal gloss, and a named translation.