Òwe on Patience, Restraint and Temper
Forty-three Yorùbá proverbs on sùúrù, patience, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sùúrù is patience, and in this corpus it sits beside ìwà, character, as one of the load-bearing virtue-terms: yoruba-owe-proverbs already records the claim that patience is the father of character. This file goes further into the same territory that Owomoyela groups with caution and moderation: what happens when a person waits versus when a person acts on impulse, what anger costs the person who indulges it, and what counts as proportionate restraint rather than mere passivity. The proverbs below are not united by a single doctrine. Some promise that patience wins everything; others describe haste, anger and excess as the specific mechanisms by which people ruin themselves; a smaller group is about the discipline of letting a grudge go rather than about waiting as such. Read together they describe sùúrù as a practical technique for getting through difficult or dangerous undertakings, not primarily as an interior calm.
How this file is sourced
The proverbs below are drawn from Oyekan Owomoyela's digitised The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yorùbá Proverb Treasury, hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries Electronic Text Center, Part 3, "On cageyness, caution, moderation, patience, and prudence" That page prints each proverb in standard orthography with tone marks, followed by Owomoyela's own English translation and a parenthetical usage note. Part 3 covers a wider territory than patience alone, Owomoyela having grouped several related dispositional virtues under one heading, so the selection here is a subset: only entries where patience, restraint of temper, forbearance, or the cost of haste is the actual point of the proverb are included. Proverbs in the source that are about caution toward external danger, prudent planning, or moderation in matters unrelated to temper have been left out, even where they appear in the same numbered sequence as an included entry. 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) .
None of the proverbs below duplicate the five patience-and-time entries already collected in yoruba-owe-proverbs (Sùúrù ni baba ìwà; Ẹni tí ó bá ní sùúrù ni yóò fi wàrà kìnnìún ṣe oògùn; Kò sí ohun tí ó ṣòro tí kò ní ìparí; Bí a kò bá jìyà ọjọ́ kan...; Àìsàn tí a ń wò ni kò gbọdọ̀ pa ni) or entries 19 and 34 of owe-iwa-character, its two proverbs that touch patience only in passing. One entry below, a three-clause compound that includes the wording "sùúrù baba ìwà," is kept because it is a distinct, longer textual unit with its own usage note, on the same basis that owe-iwa-character keeps expanded variants of proverbs it also states in shorter form elsewhere; the overlap is flagged in that entry's notes rather than concealed.
Patience as the working method for difficult things
1. Ìbínú ò da nǹkan; sùúrù baba ìwà; àgbà tó ní sùúrù ohun gbogbo ló ní.
Literal: Ìbínú ò da nǹkan anger does-not accomplish anything; sùúrù baba ìwà patience is-father-of character; àgbà tó ní sùúrù an-elder who has patience ohun gbogbo ló ní everything is-what he-has.
Idiomatic: "Anger accomplishes nothing; forebearance is the father of character traits; an elder who has forebearance has everything."
Meaning: Anger is unproductive, patience is the source of good character, and the patient elder lacks nothing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Forebearance will avail one everything, whereas anger will always prove futile" Owomoyela cross-references it to the shorter Ìbínú baba òṣì, entry 3 below.
Notes: The middle clause repeats, with a spelling variant, the two-word proverb Sùúrù ni baba ìwà already collected in yoruba-owe-proverbs. This text is kept here rather than treated as a duplicate because it is a different, longer unit: an anger-clause and a reward-clause frame the two-word aphorism into an argument about temper specifically, where the short form is a bare statement about character in general. The third clause is close in wording to Ẹni tí ó ní sùúrù, ó ní ohun gbogbo, also already collected; here it is not a separate proverb but the conclusion of this compound one.
2. Onísùúrù ní ńṣe ọkọ ọmọ Aláhúsá.
Literal: Onísùúrù the-owner-of-patience ní ńṣe ọkọ is-who becomes husband ọmọ Aláhúsá of-the-child of-a-Hausa-person.
Idiomatic: "Only the patient person will win the daughter of the Hausa man."
Meaning: A prize that takes prolonged effort to secure goes to whoever can outlast the difficulty.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Patience overcomes all obstacles"
Notes: Onísùúrù, owner-of-patience, is formed on the same productive oní- pattern discussed at owe-iwa-character entry 5 (oníwà, owner of character). The specific scenario, a courtship across an ethnic and religious boundary understood to be difficult to negotiate, gives the proverb a concrete social referent rather than a purely abstract one; it is used more broadly for any goal that requires sustained effort against resistance.
3. Ìbínú baba òṣì.
Literal: Ìbínú anger baba òṣì is-father-of poverty.
Idiomatic: "Anger is the father of hopelessness."
Meaning: Anger produces destitution or ruin, not results.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Anger achieves no good, but may backfire on whoever expresses it"
Notes: Òṣì is poverty or destitution in the material sense, which Owomoyela's "hopelessness" broadens; the Yorùbá makes a narrower, harder claim, that anger costs the angry person their livelihood, not merely their outlook. The baba construction, X is the father of Y, meaning X is the chief instance or the origin of Y, recurs across this file and across owe-iwa-character; it is one of the most productive templates in the proverb corpus.
4. Ọgbọ́n pẹ̀lú-u sùúrù la fi ḿmú erin wọ̀lú.
Literal: Ọgbọ́n pẹ̀lú-u sùúrù wisdom together-with patience la fi ḿmú erin wọ̀lú is-what-we-use to-bring an-elephant into-town.
Idiomatic: "It is with cunning and patience that one brings an elephant into town."
Meaning: The hardest undertakings are accomplished by combining intelligence with patience, not by force.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The most difficult tasks can be accomplished with wisdom and patience"
Notes: An elephant led into a town rather than killed in the bush is a domestication image, moving something enormous and dangerous into a controlled space gradually. The proverb pairs ọgbọ́n, wisdom or cunning, with sùúrù as a working pair rather than treating patience as sufficient by itself, which distinguishes it from entries elsewhere in this file that credit patience alone.
5. Kò sí ohun tí sùúrù-ú sè tí kò jinná.
Literal: Kò sí ohun there-is-nothing tí sùúrù-ú sè that patience cooks tí kò jinná that is-not well-cooked.
Idiomatic: "There is nothing that patience cooks that is not well cooked."
Meaning: Whatever patience is applied to comes out properly done.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Forbearance overcomes all things"
Notes: The cooking image ties this proverb to entry 10 below and to entry 34, both of which use the same domain of slow, attended-to cookery for patience; Yorùbá proverb-making returns to the kitchen repeatedly for this virtue, presumably because a badly rushed stew is a familiar, low-stakes example of what haste ruins.
6. Làákàyè baba ìwà; bí o ní sùúrù, ohun gbogbo lo ní.
Literal: Làákàyè common-sense baba ìwà is-father-of character; bí o ní sùúrù if you have patience, ohun gbogbo lo ní everything is-what-you-have.
Idiomatic: "Common sense is the father of good character; whoever has patience has everything."
Meaning: Good judgement is what character is built on, and a patient person is short of nothing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Common sense and patience are the chief qualities one must have" Owomoyela cross-references it directly to entry 1 above, Ìbínú ò da nǹkan.
Notes: This is a third variant on the "baba ìwà" template, this time crediting làákàyè, common sense or good judgement, rather than sùúrù itself, as the father of character, with patience introduced only in the second clause as the thing that secures everything. Owomoyela's own cross-reference to entry 1 confirms that the tradition treats these differently-worded proverbs as siblings rather than as competitors for a single correct wording.
7. Sùúrù-ú lérè.
Literal: Sùúrù-ú lérè patience has-profit.
Idiomatic: "Patience has its profits."
Meaning: Patience pays a return.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Patience is a useful quality to cultivate"
Notes: Èrè, profit or gain, is ordinarily a commercial word, used of the margin a trader makes; applying it to patience treats the virtue as an investment with a calculable yield rather than as a purely moral good, consistent with the practical, results-oriented register running through this file.
8. Sùúrù loògùn ayé.
Literal: Sùúrù patience loògùn ayé is-the-medicine-for life.
Idiomatic: "Patience is the talisman for living."
Meaning: Patience is the remedy that makes life survivable.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Patience solves all problems"
Notes: Oògùn recurs across this corpus as the working remedy for a named problem, as in iṣẹ́ ni oògùn ìṣẹ́, work is the medicine of poverty, collected in yoruba-owe-proverbs. Naming ayé, life or the world, as the ailment patience treats is one of the largest claims made for the virtue anywhere in this file.
9. Sùúrù ò lópin.
Literal: Sùúrù patience ò lópin has-no end.
Idiomatic: "There is no end to the need for patience."
Meaning: Patience is never a finished task; it must be renewed continually.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must never tire of exercising patience"
Notes: Where entries 7 and 8 promise a return on patience, this one withholds any promise of completion, stating instead that the demand for patience is open-ended. Placed beside the other two, it is a useful corrective against reading the file's praise of patience as a guarantee that waiting will end.
10. A kì í fi ìkánjú lá ọbẹ̀ gbígbóná.
Literal: A kì í fi ìkánjú one does-not with haste lá ọbẹ̀ gbígbóná lick stew that-is-scalding-hot.
Idiomatic: "One does not eat scalding stew in a hurry."
Meaning: A dangerous or delicate task cannot be rushed without injury.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Patience is best in delicate or difficult matters"
Notes: Lá, to lick or lap up, is the verb for eating a thin stew directly rather than with a utensil, so the image is of a mouth in direct contact with the heat; the danger is not abstract. Compare entry 33 below, Ẹ̀sọ̀ ẹ̀sọ̀ la fi ńlá ọbẹ̀ tó gbóná, which restates the same scene as a positive instruction rather than a prohibition.
11. A kì í kánjú tu olú-ọrán; igba ẹ̀ ò tó-ó sebẹ̀.
Literal: A kì í kánjú one does-not in-haste tu olú-ọrán gather olú-ọrán-mushrooms; igba ẹ̀ two-hundred of-them ò tó-ó sebẹ̀ is-not-enough to-make-stew.
Idiomatic: "One does not gather olú-ọrán mushrooms in haste; two hundred of them are not enough to make a stew."
Meaning: Some tasks require so much patient, repeated effort that hurrying accomplishes almost nothing toward the goal.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Certain tasks demand patience if they are to come out right"
Notes: The mushroom is small enough that even two hundred gathered carelessly and quickly will not fill a pot; the proverb makes its case with an exact, almost comic quantity rather than a vague appeal to difficulty.
12. Atọrọohungbogbolọ́wọ́Ọlọ́run kì í kánjú.
Literal: Atọrọohungbogbolọ́wọ́Ọlọ́run the-one-who-asks-everything-from-God's-hand kì í kánjú does-not hurry.
Idiomatic: "The-seeker-of-all-things-from-God does not yield to impatience."
Meaning: Someone whose needs are in God's hands cannot afford to be impatient, because impatience will not move the timeline.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The supplicant must be patient for an answer"
Notes: The whole clause is compounded into a single orthographic word, an agentive construction built by stringing the sentence "one who asks all things from God's hand" into one noun; Owomoyela's digitised text prints it unbroken, and it is reproduced here as printed. The construction itself performs a kind of patience: reading it requires slowing down.
13. Bí ẹlẹ́hìnkùlé ò sùn, à pẹ́ lẹ́hìnkùlé-e rẹ̀ títí; bó pẹ́ títí orun a gbé onílé lọ.
Literal: Bí ẹlẹ́hìnkùlé ò sùn if the-owner-of-the-backyard does-not sleep, à pẹ́ lẹ́hìnkùlé-e rẹ̀ títí one stays in-his-backyard for-a-long-time; bó pẹ́ títí however-long-it-takes orun a gbé onílé lọ sleep will carry the-house-owner away.
Idiomatic: "If the owner of the backyard does not sleep, one stays in the backyard for a long time, sooner or later the owner of the house will fall asleep."
Meaning: Persistence outlasts vigilance. Whoever is waiting for an opening only has to wait long enough.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Patience accomplishes all ends"
Notes: The scene, waiting out a watchful householder from the backyard until sleep defeats their guard, gives the proverb a slightly adversarial edge that most of the other patience proverbs in this group lack: this one is about patience as a tool used against someone, not patience as a virtue exercised for its own reward.
14. Má fìkánjú jayé, awo ilé Alárá; má fi wàà-wàà joyè, awo Òkè Ìjerò; ayé kan ḿbẹ lẹ́hìn, ó dùn bí ẹní ńlá oyin.
Literal: Má fìkánjú jayé do-not with-haste enjoy-life, awo ilé Alárá the-diviner's-word for-the-house-of-Alárá; má fi wàà-wàà joyè do-not with recklessness take-chieftaincy, awo Òkè Ìjerò the-diviner's-word for-Òkè-Ìjerò; ayé kan ḿbẹ lẹ́hìn a-life exists behind, ó dùn bí ẹní ńlá oyin it-is-sweet like one licking honey.
Idiomatic: "Do not go impatiently about enjoying life, the oracle delivered to the Alárá household; do not rush into chieftaincy, the oracle for the Òkè Ìjerò household; there comes another life in the future that is as delicious as licking honey."
Meaning: Impatience for pleasure or status forfeits a better outcome that is coming if one waits.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whoever goes about life with patience will reap untold enjoyment from it"
Notes: The proverb is framed as an Ifá divination verse delivered to two named households, Alárá and Òkè Ìjerò, a structure shared with a large class of Yorùbá proverbs that carry the form of oracular pronouncement rather than direct address. That framing lends the warning an authority beyond ordinary advice: it is presented as what the oracle itself said, not as folk wisdom improvised for the occasion.
What haste costs
15. Ẹní kánjú jayé á kánjú lọ sọ́run.
Literal: Ẹní kánjú jayé whoever hurries to-enjoy-life á kánjú lọ sọ́run will hurry to-go to-heaven.
Idiomatic: "Whoever is in a hurry to enjoy life will go to heaven in a hurry."
Meaning: A rushed pursuit of pleasure or gain shortens life.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Patience is what life calls for"
Notes: "Going to heaven" is the standard Yorùbá indirection for dying, used throughout this corpus's proverbs about death; the pairing of the two clauses, hurrying to live and hurrying to die, turns on the repeated verb kánjú rather than on any stated causal mechanism, leaving the hearer to supply how haste kills.
16. Akánjú jayé, ọ̀run wọn ò pẹ́.
Literal: Akánjú jayé people-who-hurry-to-enjoy-life, ọ̀run wọn ò pẹ́ their heaven is-not far.
Idiomatic: "People who live impatiently: their going to heaven is not far off."
Meaning: An impatient manner of living brings death closer.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Reckless living leads to early death"
Notes: A close variant of entry 15, built on the same agent noun akánjú, the-one-who-hurries, rather than the relative clause ẹní kánjú. Owomoyela's digitised text prints both as separate entries in Part 3, which is itself informative about how a proverb tradition tolerates and preserves near-duplicate phrasings rather than settling on one canonical form.
17. Ayáraròhìn, aya ọdẹ, ó ní ọkọ òun-ún pa èkínní, ó pa ẹ̀kẹfà.
Literal: Ayáraròhìn the-hasty-reporter, aya ọdẹ wife of-a-hunter, ó ní she says ọkọ òun-ún pa èkínní her-husband killed the-first, ó pa ẹ̀kẹfà he-killed the-sixth.
Idiomatic: "The-impatient-reporter, wife of the hunter, she says that her husband killed the first and killed the sixth."
Meaning: Reporting news too eagerly, before the facts are settled, produces a garbled or self-contradicting account.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The impatient reporter is liable to outstrip her report"
Notes: The name Ayáraròhìn is built as an epithet, the-hasty-one-in-telling-a-story, in the same compounding style as Atọrọohungbogbolọ́wọ́Ọlọ́run in entry 12; Yorùbá regularly turns a fault into a personal name-form to characterise the person who has it. The wife's error, saying "the first" and then jumping to "the sixth" without the numbers in between, dramatises impatience as a failure of sequence rather than of accuracy.
18. Ẹní fi ìpọ́njú kọ ẹyìn á kọ àbọ̀n; ẹní fi ìpọ́njú rojọ́ á jẹ̀bi ọba; ẹní fi ìpọ́njú lọ gbẹ́ ìhò á gbẹ́ ihò awọ́nrínwọ́n.
Literal: Ẹní fi ìpọ́njú kọ ẹyìn whoever with desperation gathers palm-fruit á kọ àbọ̀n will gather unripe-ones; ẹní fi ìpọ́njú rojọ́ whoever with desperation states-his-case á jẹ̀bi ọba will-be found-guilty by-the-king; ẹní fi ìpọ́njú lọ gbẹ́ ìhò whoever with desperation goes digs a-hole á gbẹ́ ihò awọ́nrínwọ́n will dig-into an-iguana's-burrow.
Idiomatic: "Whoever gathers palm fruits in desperation will gather unripe ones; whoever states his or her case in desperation will be adjudged at fault by the king; whoever digs a hole in desperation will dig out an iguana lizard."
Meaning: Acting from desperation produces the wrong result in three unrelated domains at once: harvest, litigation, and digging.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Nothing turns out well if done in desperation. Easy does it"
Notes: The three-part structure, harvest, court, and manual labour, is a common Yorùbá proverb device for generalising a claim across domains rather than resting it on one image; each clause repeats fi ìpọ́njú, with desperation, as the constant, and the outcome varies to show the fault is portable across contexts. The iguana surprising the digger is the sharpest of the three, since it turns an ordinary task into an encounter with something unwanted and possibly dangerous.
19. Ọ̀kánjúwà ò ṣé-é fi wá nǹkan.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà covetous-impatience ò ṣé-é fi wá nǹkan is-not a-thing-to-use to-seek something.
Idiomatic: "Impatient envy is not a good state in which to seek anything."
Meaning: A grasping, impatient disposition is a poor instrument for actually acquiring what one wants.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should be patient in seeking one's fortune"
Notes: Ọ̀kánjúwà usually glosses as covetousness or greed elsewhere in this corpus (see owe-iwa-character entry 19), but it shares its root with kánjú, to hurry, and Owomoyela's usage note here reads it specifically as impatience rather than as greed in general; the proverb sits at the boundary between the two vices, treating grasping and hurrying as one and the same failure of temperament when it comes to seeking a fortune.
20. Ìkánjú òun pẹ̀lẹ́, ọgbọọgba.
Literal: Ìkánjú haste òun pẹ̀lẹ́ and gentleness ọgbọọgba are-equal.
Idiomatic: "Haste and patience end up the same."
Meaning: Rushing gains no time over proceeding gently; the two arrive together.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Great haste offers no advantage over patience"
Notes: Four words in the Yorùbá, stating the claim as a bare equation, ọgbọọgba, equal or the same, rather than arguing for it; the proverb offers no image or scene, unlike most others in this file, and relies entirely on the flat assertion that the two paces converge on the same outcome. It is closest in spirit to entry 5's promise that patience finishes the job properly, but makes the stronger and more surprising claim that haste finishes it no faster.
21. Ojú kan náà lèwe ńbágbà.
Literal: Ojú kan náà the-same place lèwe ńbágbà is-where-the-youth catches-up-with the-elder.
Idiomatic: "It is at the same place that the youth will come up on the elder."
Meaning: Time alone closes the gap between the young and the old; the youth will become the elder simply by waiting it out.
Used when: Owomoyela's note reads: "Sooner or later the youth becomes an elder; patience is all"
Notes: Unlike most of the entries in this group, the proverb is not about enduring a specific hardship but about the simple passage of years as itself sufficient. It gives patience a guaranteed outcome in a way entry 9, Sùúrù ò lópin, is careful not to: growing old is one of the few things a person accomplishes by patience alone, without any additional effort.
Anger and what it destroys
22. Ìbínú lọbá fi ńyọ idà; ìtìjù ló fi ḿbẹ́ ẹ.
Literal: Ìbínú lọbá fi ńyọ idà anger is-what the-king uses to draw his-sword; ìtìjù ló fi ḿbẹ́ ẹ shame is-what he-uses to-behead him.
Idiomatic: "It is in anger that the king draws his sword; it is shame that makes him go through with the beheading."
Meaning: An action begun in anger can be carried to its worst conclusion not by the anger itself but by the unwillingness to back down once witnessed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Once one begins an injudicious action on impulse, one might have to carry it through to avoid embarrassment"
Notes: The proverb makes a precise distinction between two different emotions driving one act: the drawing of the sword is anger, but the actual killing is credited to ìtìjù, shame or the fear of losing face, once the king cannot retreat without looking foolish. This is a sharper diagnosis than "anger is dangerous"; it identifies the second emotion, not the first, as what turns an impulsive gesture into an irreversible one.
23. Ìbínú ò mọ̀ pé olúwa òun ò lẹ́sẹ̀ ńlẹ̀.
Literal: Ìbínú ò mọ̀ pé anger does-not know that olúwa òun its owner ò lẹ́sẹ̀ ńlẹ̀ has-no legs on-the-ground.
Idiomatic: "Anger does not know that its owner has no legs to stand on."
Meaning: Anger acts without regard for whether the angry person is actually in a position of strength.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Anger does not know prudence"
Notes: "Having no legs to stand on" is a stability idiom, meaning to lack a secure footing or a real basis for confidence; the proverb personifies anger as an agent that overrides its owner's own knowledge of their weak position, which is a distinct claim from simply saying angry people are reckless. It says anger specifically blinds a person to their own vulnerability.
24. Kànìké tìtorí oókan kùngbẹ́.
Literal: Kànìké Kànìké (a personal name) tìtorí oókan on-account-of one-cowry kùngbẹ́ set-fire-to-the-forest.
Idiomatic: "Kànìké set fire to the forest on account of a single cowry shell."
Meaning: A wildly disproportionate response to a trivial provocation.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It makes no sense to lose control of oneself over trifling matters"
Notes: Named-individual proverbs of this kind, where a specific person's over-the-top act is preserved as a byword, are common in Yorùbá and function like an idiom built on an anecdote rather than a general statement; nothing else is known about Kànìké from the proverb itself, and the name exists only to carry this one story. The imbalance between the provocation, a single cowry, the smallest unit of value in the pre-colonial currency, and the response, burning down a forest, is the entire joke and the entire warning.
25. Òkò àbínújù kì í pẹyẹ.
Literal: Òkò àbínújù a-stone thrown-in-anger kì í pẹyẹ does-not kill a-bird.
Idiomatic: "A stone thrown in anger does not kill a bird."
Meaning: Actions taken in anger miss their mark.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whatever one does in anger is liable to go awry"
Notes: The claim is about aim, not about force: an angry throw is not weaker, it is worse-directed. This makes the proverb a practical rather than a moral objection to acting in anger, closer to advice about marksmanship than to a warning about sin.
26. Onínúfùfù ní ńwá oúnjẹ fún onínúwẹ́rẹ́wẹ́rẹ́.
Literal: Onínúfùfù the-owner-of-a-hot-inside ní ńwá oúnjẹ is-who seeks food fún onínúwẹ́rẹ́wẹ́rẹ́ for the-owner-of-a-cool-inside.
Idiomatic: "Always it is the hot-tempered person that finds food for the even-tempered person."
Meaning: The hot-tempered person does the exhausting work, and the even-tempered person is the one who ends up benefiting from it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The even-tempered person will always have the advantage of the hot-tempered person"
Notes: Inú, the inside or belly, is the Yorùbá seat of temperament, so oníinúfùfù (owner of a hot inside) and oníinúwẹ́rẹ́wẹ́rẹ́ (owner of a cool, settled inside) are a matched pair built on the same organ-metaphor, one Yorùbá uses throughout its emotional vocabulary. The proverb's claim is transactional rather than moral: it does not say the hot-tempered person is wrong to be hot-tempered, only that the arrangement of the world favours the cooler party economically.
27. Bí àṣá bá ḿbínú, sùúrù ló yẹ ọlọ́jà.
Literal: Bí àṣá bá ḿbínú if the-kite is angry, sùúrù ló yẹ ọlọ́jà patience is-what suits the-market-trader.
Idiomatic: "If the kite is displaying anger, the best response for the trader is patience."
Meaning: When a more powerful party is provoked, the correct response from the weaker one is composure, not a matching display.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must learn forbearance in the face of provocation"
Notes: A kite is a bird of prey capable of taking chickens or goods from an open-air market, so the trader has a real material stake in not escalating; the proverb is not abstract advice about temperament but a specific instruction for dealing with a threatening party who has the upper hand. It has the same logic as entry 31 below, Ìpàkọ́ ò gbọ́ ṣùtì, without that entry's total refusal to acknowledge the provocation at all.
Moderation and the discipline of restraint
28. Àgúnbàjẹ́ ni tolódó.
Literal: Àgúnbàjẹ́ pounding-until-ruined ni tolódó is-the-habit-of the-owner-of-the-mortar.
Idiomatic: "Pounding-until-it-is-ruined is the habit of the owner of the mortar."
Meaning: Someone with plenty of a resource tends to use it without restraint, past the point where restraint would have served them better.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should exercise restraint in using what one has in abundance"
Notes: The compressed noun àgúnbàjẹ́, pounding-until-ruined, names the fault as a single word rather than a description, in the same manner as à-bí-ì-kọ́ and similar formations discussed at owe-iwa-character entry 33. The mortar owner does not lack material; the failure is entirely one of self-control despite having no external constraint forcing restraint on them.
29. Ijó àjójù ní ńmú kí okó-o eégún yọ jáde.
Literal: Ijó àjójù dancing that-is-excessive ní ńmú kí okó-o eégún yọ jáde is-what causes the-masquerader's-penis to come out.
Idiomatic: "Unrestrained dancing is what causes the masquerader's penis to become exposed."
Meaning: Even an activity that is itself proper and pleasurable produces embarrassment or disaster once taken past its natural limit.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should exercise restraint in performing even pleasurable activities"
Notes: The egúngún masquerader performs fully costumed and concealed, so an exposure of this kind is a serious ritual breach, not merely a comic wardrobe accident; the proverb's bluntness about the body is characteristic of a register of Yorùbá proverb that uses frank physical comedy to make a point about self-discipline that a more decorous image would blunt.
30. Kí oníkálùkù rọra ṣe é; ìfẹjú òbò ò lè fa aṣọ ya.
Literal: Kí oníkálùkù rọra ṣe é let everyone gently do it; ìfẹjú òbò the-gaping of-the-vagina ò lè fa aṣọ ya cannot tear cloth.
Idiomatic: "Let everybody take matters easy; the vagina cannot tear a cloth by gaping at it."
Meaning: Excitement and over-exertion accomplish nothing that patient, unhurried effort would not accomplish better.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Over-excitement accomplishes little; it is far better to take life easy"
Notes: Rọra, to go gently or slowly, is the standard Yorùbá adverb of unhurried care and recurs across this file's entries on moderation; here it opens the proverb as direct communal advice, "let everyone," rather than as an observation about a third party. The bawdy second clause supplies the illustration by absurdity: no amount of intensity substitutes for the physical mechanism actually required, which is the entire argument compressed into one image.
31. Ìpàkọ́ ò gbọ́ ṣùtì, ìpẹ̀hìndà ò mọ yẹ̀gẹ̀ yíyẹ̀.
Literal: Ìpàkọ́ ò gbọ́ ṣùtì the-back-of-the-head does-not hear an-insult, ìpẹ̀hìndà ò mọ yẹ̀gẹ̀ yíyẹ̀ a-turned-back does-not know a-disdainful-gesture being-made.
Idiomatic: "The occiput does not recognize contempt; a turned back does not see a disdainful gesture."
Meaning: Refusing to register an insult, by literally or figuratively turning away from it, is itself a form of restraint.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The best response to insults is to disregard them"
Notes: The proverb personifies a body part, the ìpàkọ́, the nape or back of the head, as a kind of willed deafness: the whole person hears the insult perfectly well, but the proverb insists on describing only the part of the body that faces away, as though restraint could be located anatomically. That fiction is the proverb's method: it recommends behaving as if one had not heard, not actually not hearing.
32. Olójútì logun ńpa.
Literal: Olójútì the-owner-of-a-face-that-is-easily-shamed logun ńpa is-whom war kills.
Idiomatic: "It is those who worry about their image who die in war."
Meaning: Excessive concern for how one is seen, rather than for one's actual safety, gets people killed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Discretion and a thick skin are sometimes much better than valor"
Notes: Ojú tì, to be ashamed or self-conscious, was already glossed at owe-iwa-character entry 40, where it names a productive faculty of self-protection; here the same idiom is turned against itself, and self-consciousness becomes the specific liability that keeps a person from retreating when retreat is the wiser course. Read together, the two entries show Yorùbá proverb-making holding the same emotion as both an asset and a danger depending on the stakes.
33. Ẹ̀sọ̀ ẹ̀sọ̀ la fi ńlá ọbẹ̀ tó gbóná.
Literal: Ẹ̀sọ̀ ẹ̀sọ̀ slowly, slowly la fi ńlá ọbẹ̀ tó gbóná is-how-we lick stew that-is scalding-hot.
Idiomatic: "Slowly, slowly is the way to eat soup that is scalding hot."
Meaning: The more dangerous or delicate an undertaking, the more deliberate the pace it requires.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The more dangerous the task, the greater care one must take"
Notes: The positive counterpart to entry 10, A kì í fi ìkánjú lá ọbẹ̀ gbígbóná, restating the same scalding-stew image as an instruction rather than a prohibition. Owomoyela's digitised text preserves both forms as separate entries, which is again evidence that the tradition keeps a proverb's positive and negative phrasings both in active circulation rather than collapsing them into one.
34. Pẹ̀lẹ́-pẹ̀lẹ́ lejò-ó fi ńgun àgbọn.
Literal: Pẹ̀lẹ́-pẹ̀lẹ́ gently, gently lejò-ó fi ńgun àgbọn is-how the-snake climbs the-coconut-palm.
Idiomatic: "It is very carefully and patiently that a snake climbs the coconut palm."
Meaning: A slow, deliberate approach is what allows even an unlikely climber to reach a difficult height.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Dangerous and difficult tasks should be attempted with care and patience"
Notes: A snake has no limbs for climbing, so the image already carries a note of the improbable: something poorly equipped for the task achieves it anyway, purely through unhurried care. Pẹ̀lẹ́-pẹ̀lẹ́, gently or slowly, reduplicated for emphasis, is the same register of instruction as ẹ̀sọ̀ ẹ̀sọ̀ in entry 33, and the two proverbs form a small pair on deliberate pacing as a technique rather than a mood.
35. Ibi tí inú ḿbí asẹ́ tó, inú ò gbọdọ̀ bí ìkòkò débẹ̀; bínú bá bí ìkòkò débẹ̀, ẹlẹ́kọ ò ní-í rí dá.
Literal: Ibi tí inú ḿbí asẹ́ tó to-the-extent the-inside angers the-sieve, inú ò gbọdọ̀ bí ìkòkò débẹ̀ the-inside must-not anger the-pot to-that-extent; bínú bá bí ìkòkò débẹ̀ if anger angers the-pot to-that-extent, ẹlẹ́kọ ò ní-í rí dá the-corn-meal-seller will-not find anything-to-sell.
Idiomatic: "The cooking pot must never harbor a grudge to the same extent that the sieve does; if the pot does so, the corn-meal trader will have nothing to sell."
Meaning: The party with more capacity to cause damage must exercise proportionally more restraint than the party with less.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The more power one has, the more one should exercise restraint"
Notes: The sieve can afford a grudge because a sulking sieve does little practical harm; a sulking pot, which holds the food over the fire, can ruin the entire trade if it "loses its temper" in the same way. The proverb reasons from kitchen equipment to a general principle about proportional restraint that applies most obviously to those with authority: it belongs beside entry 32 as one of this file's arguments that the standard for self-control rises with one's capacity to do harm, not with one's capacity to feel provoked.
Restraint toward other people
36. Bí a bá lé ẹni, tí a kò bá ẹni, ìwọ̀n là ḿbá ẹni-í ṣọ̀tá mọ.
Literal: Bí a bá lé ẹni if one chases a-person, tí a kò bá ẹni and one does-not catch the-person, ìwọ̀n là ḿbá ẹni-í ṣọ̀tá mọ moderation is-how-one continues to-treat-the-person as-an-enemy.
Idiomatic: "If one chases a person and does not catch up with the person, one should moderate one's hatred of the person."
Meaning: When an attempt to catch or punish someone fails, the grievance itself should scale down rather than intensify.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Envy should not turn into hatred"
Notes: Ìwọ̀n, measure or proportion, is the operative word: the proverb does not counsel abandoning the grievance altogether, only keeping it in proportion to what has actually happened. This is a narrower and more realistic demand than forgiveness, and it matches the practical, non-idealised register of most of this file's advice about temper.
37. Bí a bá ní ká jẹ èkuru kó tán, a kì í gbọn ọwọ́-ọ rẹ̀ sáwo.
Literal: Bí a bá ní ká jẹ èkuru kó tán if one wishes to eat dry-bean-grits until-finished, a kì í gbọn ọwọ́-ọ rẹ̀ sáwo one does-not shake its residue back-onto the-plate.
Idiomatic: "If one wishes to clean one's plate of dry bean grits, one does not keep scraping the remnants from one's fingers onto the plate."
Meaning: Ending a matter properly means not continually returning the last traces of it to where they can be picked up again.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one wishes a quarrel to end, one does not keep recalling its cause"
Notes: Èkuru, a steamed bean paste eaten with the fingers, sticks to the hand in small amounts that are easy to scrape back onto the plate almost without noticing; the proverb's force is in that ease, the residue comes back with no effort at all unless one deliberately stops oneself, which is exactly how old grievances resurface in an argument that both parties otherwise wanted to end.
38. Ẹni méjì kì í bínú egbinrin.
Literal: Ẹni méjì two people kì í bínú egbinrin do-not hold-a-grudge together indefinitely.
Idiomatic: "Two people do not hold a grudge and refuse reconciliation."
Meaning: A quarrel between two parties cannot remain unresolved unless both insist on it; one side softening is enough to end it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If there is to be any hope of ending a quarrel, one of the parties at least must be willing to make up"
Notes: The proverb is descriptive as much as prescriptive: it asserts, as a fact about how quarrels work, that mutual and equally sustained anger from both sides is rare, which quietly puts pressure on whichever party is currently the angrier one to be the party who yields, since the arithmetic of the proverb assumes someone eventually will.
39. Ẹni tí a lù lógbòó mẹ́fà, tí a ní kó fiyèdénú: ìgbà tí kò fiyèdénú ńkọ́?
Literal: Ẹni tí a lù a-person whom one hits lógbòó mẹ́fà with-a-cudgel six-times, tí a ní kó fiyèdénú and one tells to bear-it-patiently: ìgbà tí kò fiyèdénú ńkọ́? what-of the-time when he-does-not bear-it-patiently?
Idiomatic: "A person is hit with a cudgel six times and then urged to learn forbearance; what other option does he or she have?"
Meaning: Advice to be patient, offered to someone who has already been beaten and has no power to retaliate, is close to meaningless, since patience was never a choice they had.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A victim with no access to any remedy needs no advice to let matters drop"
Notes: This proverb is the sharpest corrective in the file to any reading of sùúrù as an unqualified good: it points out that counselling patience to a person who has no capacity to do otherwise is not moral advice but a redundant observation, and it implicitly criticises whoever offers such counsel from a position of safety. It belongs beside entry 32 and entry 27 as evidence that Yorùbá proverb-making treats forbearance as situational wisdom, appropriate to a party with some real choice in the matter, not as a virtue owed regardless of circumstance.
Patience rewarded over the long run
Owomoyela's digitised text includes a family of proverbs sharing the fixed opening Pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ̀ẹ́, "it may take long, but," each completing the formula with a different image and a different eventual outcome. Two representative members are given here in full, both glossed by Owomoyela specifically in terms of patience; the formula recurs in the source with further completions (a stammerer eventually saying "papa," a submerged swimmer eventually surfacing, a deceitful person eventually being found out) that make the same structural point with different material and are not repeated here.
40. Pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ̀ẹ́, akọ̀pẹ yó wàá sílẹ̀.
Literal: Pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ̀ẹ́ it-will-be-long that it-will-be-long, akọ̀pẹ the-palm-wine-tapster yó wàá sílẹ̀ will-descend to-the-ground.
Idiomatic: "It may take a while, but the palm-wine tapster will descend from atop the palm-tree."
Meaning: However long the wait, the person up the tree eventually has to come down; the outcome is not in doubt, only its timing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "All it takes is patience; what one desires will eventually happen"
Notes: The palm-wine tapster works at height, tapping the crown of the palm for sap, and must come down at the end of every session regardless of how long the work takes; the image is chosen because the descent is not merely likely but structurally guaranteed by the nature of the job. This is a stronger claim than "good things come to those who wait": it says the specific thing waited for is not actually in question, and only the waiting itself is real.
41. Pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ̀ẹ́, amòòkùn yó jàáde nínú odò.
Literal: Pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ̀ẹ́ it-will-be-long that it-will-be-long, amòòkùn the-underwater-swimmer yó jàáde nínú odò will-emerge from inside-the-river.
Idiomatic: "It may take a while, but the under-water swimmer will eventually surface."
Meaning: What must inevitably happen will happen, however long it is delayed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one is patient, what is bound to happen will eventually happen"
Notes: Physiologically, the swimmer must surface to breathe, so this is again an inevitability drawn from a bodily or physical necessity rather than from hope; the formula's other completions in the source (the stammerer, the deceitful person eventually exposed, the palm-wine tapster of entry 40) all share this same logical shape, an outcome guaranteed by the nature of the situation, with patience supplying only the waiting-out of an already-settled matter.
42. Tọ̀sán tọ̀sán ní ńpọ́n ìtalẹ̀ lójú; bílẹ̀-ẹ́ bá ṣú yó di olóńjẹ.
Literal: Tọ̀sán tọ̀sán daytime after daytime ní ńpọ́n ìtalẹ̀ lójú is-what troubles the-mud-floor-worm's eyes; bílẹ̀-ẹ́ bá ṣú when night falls yó di olóńjẹ it becomes one-with-food.
Idiomatic: "It is the persistence of daylight that imposes suffering on the mud-floor worm; when night falls it will find food."
Meaning: Present hardship is bound to the current hour, and waiting it out delivers what the sufferer currently lacks.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Patience will bring what one lacks to one"
Notes: The worm's difficulty is entirely a function of the time of day, not of anything wrong with the worm or its situation, so the proverb locates the whole problem in timing and the whole solution in waiting for the timing to change, without requiring the sufferer to do anything else.
43. "Tàná là ńjà lé lórí", ló pa Baálẹ̀ẹ Kòmọ̀kan.
Literal: "Tàná là ńjà lé lórí" "It-is-yesterday's-matter that-we-are-fighting-over," ló pa Baálẹ̀ẹ Kòmọ̀kan is-what killed Chief Know-Nothing.
Idiomatic: "'It is yesterday's matter that we are fighting over' is what killed Chief Know-Nothing."
Meaning: Reviving an old, settled grievance in a new quarrel is a fatal habit, not a harmless rhetorical move.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is wise to let the past alone"
Notes: The name Baálẹ̀ẹ Kòmọ̀kan, Chief Know-Nothing, is a mocking epithet rather than a real title, marking the proverb's subject as a fool by name in the same manner as Kànìké in entry 24. Set beside entry 37 above, Bí a bá ní ká jẹ èkuru kó tán, this is the same warning against dragging old matters back into a present dispute, but stated as a fatal consequence rather than as a rule of etiquette.
Reading this set
Three things stand out across these forty-three proverbs that are easy to miss reading them one at a time.
The tradition treats patience as a technique, not a temperament. Repeatedly the proverbs specify what patience is for: bringing an elephant into town, winning a difficult courtship, cooking a stew properly, outlasting a watchful householder, climbing a palm tree with no limbs to climb with. Very few of them describe an inner state of calm as valuable in itself; most describe a method for getting a hard or dangerous thing done without the extra damage that haste or anger would add. The Pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ̀ẹ́ family (entries 40 through 42) pushes this furthest: several of its images are not really about waiting well but about outcomes that were never actually in doubt, where patience does nothing except let an already-settled matter arrive. That is consistent with how yoruba-owe-proverbs already frames sùúrù as the father of ìwà, character, which is itself treated throughout owe-iwa-character as substance and practice rather than as sentiment.
The set does not let patience become a demand made on the powerless. Entry 39 is the clearest statement of this, but entries 27, 28 and 32 all carry the same undertow: patience and forbearance are recommended specifically to a party who has some genuine alternative, a trader facing a kite, a person choosing whether to press a fading grievance, someone weighing image against safety, a cooking pot with more power to do damage than a sieve. When the proverb tradition encounters a person with no alternative at all, someone already beaten six times, it does not repeat the virtue-language; it names the advice as empty. Any reading of this file that treats every entry as urging quiet acceptance regardless of circumstance would be flattening a distinction the proverbs themselves are careful to make.
The anger proverbs are more interested in mechanism than in condemnation. Entries 22 through 27 diagnose specific failures rather than simply naming anger as wrong. Entry 22 distinguishes the emotion that starts an act, anger, from the different emotion, shame, that carries it through to an irreversible conclusion; entry 25 explains that anger fails because it spoils aim, not because it is sinful; entry 24 preserves a single named person's disproportionate act, burning a forest over one cowry, as a permanent unit of comparison rather than a moral lecture. This is the same descriptive, almost clinical register that owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity documents for its proverbs about deceit: Yorùbá proverb-making frequently prefers to describe how a fault operates over simply naming it as wrong.