Ottoman wisdom through the ages
T cited a Turkish saying the other day – “the guest wants the other guests to leave” – I thought of that last night when Bam Bam was hissing at first Loca, who was crawling guerilla style trying to charm him and then Arlene, who was content to stare through Bam in her geriatric way but was doing no real harm. I scolded Bambushka and said, dude, stop it, you were last in.
The actual saying is “The guest is not welcome to a guest, but both are not to the host.” And when I told the scenario by which T came to the quote and then retold it about how it pertains to Bam to my mother last night, she said, “But no one is a guest there, they are family.” Got to love her.
In looking up the proverb or saying, I came across a great website of Turkish sayings – this one in particular made me laugh – “To the lazy every day is a holiday” – only because it provided levity toward my integrity musings.
I’ll leave you with a few Ottoman proverbs, if you don’t have time to visit the site:
“You do not practice what you know; why, then, do you seek what you do not know?”
“Envy consumes good deeds as fire consumes wood”
“Happy is he whose own faults prevent him from castigating the faults of others”
“The person who repents is like the one who has never sinned”
“Seek knowledge even in China”
“It is unlawful to withhold knowledge”
“The ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of martyrs”
“Promising is a debt”
“A good word is a charity”
“Contentment is an inexhaustible treasure”
“True wealth is not abundance in property but a generous heart”
“Make things easy, not difficult, and bring joy, not hatred”
“Actions are valued by their consequences”
“Actions are valued by their intentions, and every man shall have but that which he intended”
“Earn and dine or else fast.”